A team of researchers at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU) has discovered that cobalt-70 isotopes form different nuclear shapes when their energy levels ...

For the first time, the state of an atomic nucleus was switched with a laser. For decades, physicists have been looking for such a nuclear transition -- now it has been found. This opens up a new ...

For the first time in almost 30 years, the heaviest nucleus decaying via proton emission has been measured. The previous similar breakthrough was achieved in 1996. "Proton emission is a rare form of ...

Born in New Zealand, Ernest Rutherford transformed our understanding of matter, uncovering the atomic nucleus and laying the ...

Every atom of matter in the Universe is built around a nucleus. It's a tightly packed bundle of protons and neutrons that makes up the atomic core, defines its elemental identity, and contains most of ...

I read with great interest the article by Katherine Bourzac “Divining the Mysteries of the Atomic Nucleus” in the Jan. 29, 2024, issue of C&EN (page 30). Curious readers might like to know that an ...

Nuclear clocks could allow scientists to probe the fundamental forces of the universe in the future. Researchers have made a crucial advance in this area as part of an international collaboration.

The world's first nuclear clocks have ticked. A team of physicists has demonstrated a working timekeeping device regulated not by orbiting electrons — as in conventional atomic clocks — but by ...

The time is nigh for nuclear clocks. In a first, scientists have used a tabletop laser to bump an atomic nucleus into a higher energy state. It’s a feat that sets scientists on a path toward creating ...

Findings in nuclear physics theory have received several Nobel Prizes (1975-nucleus vibrations and rotations, 1963-nuclear shell model, 1949-meson exchange model of nuclear forces). Despite these ...

As humanity continues to investigate the subatomic world, our understanding of details of the nature of atoms and atomic nuclei grows. For generations, scientists have been trying to understand the ...