If you hit an atom's nucleus hard enough, it will fall apart. But exactly how it falls apart tells us something about the internal structure of the nucleus and perhaps about the interior of neutron ...

Intriguingly, these scientists noticed that very particular numbers of protons and neutrons appeared to result in unusually stable nuclei, and these values became known as magic numbers. "The magic ...

A new study suggests that the positively charged particles may have an outsize influence on the properties of neutron stars and other neutron-rich objects. Neutron stars are the smallest, densest ...

Researchers at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, have succeeded in transforming lead into gold at the ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Examining the smallest parts of the universe often takes the biggest kinds of equipment. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a unique piece of equipment the size of a building is ...

Inside each proton or neutron there are three quarks bound by gluons. Until now, it has often been assumed that two of them form a "stable" pair known as a diquark. It seems, however, that it's the ...

A new study identifies a transition in the strong nuclear force that illuminates the structure of a neutron star's core. Most ordinary matter is held together by an invisible subatomic glue known as ...

The strongest force in the Universe is the one that holds together the protons and neutrons in an atom’s nucleus. To unlock how elements are forged, the physics of neutron stars and more, scientists ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. Things happen fast in the earliest stages of the Universe. In the first ...

The formation of cosmic structure, on both large scales and small scales, is highly dependent on how dark matter and normal matter interact. Despite the indirect evidence for dark matter, we'd love to ...

Physicists have found the strongest sign yet of a fabled four of a kind. For six decades, researchers have hunted for clusters of four neutrons called tetraneutrons. But evidence for their existence ...

HEISENBERG has discussed the hypothesis that the nucleus of an atom is composed of neutrons and protons only, the neutron being regarded as a fundamental entity and not as a combination of an electron ...