The isotope lead-208 was predicted to be extremely stable and perfectly spherical because of the “magic” numbers of electrons and protons orbiting its nucleus. When researchers blasted lead-208 with ...

Physicists at MIT have developed a new way to probe inside an atom's nucleus, using the atom's own electrons as "messengers" within a molecule. Typically, experiments to probe the inside of atomic ...

Some atoms are stable, while others seem to fall apart. Lead-208 will probably last forever, while the synthetic isotope technetium-99 exists for just hours. The difference lies in the structure of ...

Scientists have developed a new method that can help them probe inside atom’s nucleus. Developed by researchers at MIT, the method uses the atom’s own electrons as “messengers” within a molecule to ...

A team of physicists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has achieved a breakthrough in the study of atomic nuclei. They have discovered that uranium nuclei ...

Exciting nuclei of iron atoms with a flash of X-ray light. (Courtesy: MPI for Nuclear Physics) Scientists routinely use laser light to control how an atom’s electrons move from one electronic state to ...

About 20 years ago, a physicist had an idea to reveal insights about a fundamental but enigmatic force at work in some of the most extreme environments in the universe. These environments include an ...

Inscribed on an Italian family’s 15th century coat of arms and decorating an ancient Japanese shrine, the Borromean rings are symbolically potent. Remove one ring from the trio of linked circles and ...

Ever since the nucleus of the atom was discovered in 1911, scientists have split, fused and smashed nuclei together to unravel its internal structure. Among the numerous researchers worldwide who are ...

This image depicts the radium atom’s pear-shaped nucleus of protons and neutrons in the center, surrounded by a cloud of electrons (yellow), and an electron (yellow ball with arrow) that has a ...