Old Questions and New Challenges in Nuclear Astrophysics

Since 1957, astrophysics and nuclear physics have been working together to understand the evolution and nucleosynthesis of stars in our Galaxy. Today, this collaboration appears renewed by the investigation of exotic phenomena observed by the multi-messenger astronomy. However, important and challenging puzzles remain to be solved also in classical nuclear astrophysics. This paper deals with three case studies in which the solution to stellar physics problems is found in the nuclear physics of the studied environments. In particular, the influence of the 12C + 12C fusion rate on the exploitability of supernova progenitors is discussed along with how the 17O + p reaction rate can help establish the stellar origin of certain dusts, and how precise data on β-decay in stellar plasmas are crucial to understand the neutron capture nucleosynthesis.