Protons are tiny particles just a femtometer across, but without them, atoms wouldn't exist. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

An international team of researchers recently measured the lifetime of a neutron outside of an atomic nucleus with extraordinary precision. By their measurements, the neutron survived for 14.629 ...

Look around you (or, if you’re sight impaired, touch something). Everything solid, liquid, or gas that you see and feel is made of matter. We sometimes call it “normal” matter, though with dark matter ...

“This research helps reveal how nuclear matter behaves under extreme conditions, like those that existed just after the Big ...

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 ...

The “lead” of a pencil is actually made of a substance called graphite which is made of carbon atoms. The picture shows a close-up of one carbon atom. A hydrogen atom has one proton as the nucleus and ...

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 ...

Billions of times each minute, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) smashes protons together, unleashing a maelstrom of energy that crystallizes into more protons, neutrons, and less familiar cousins of ...

Scientists are holding up a 'mirror' to protons and neutrons to learn more about the particles that build our visible universe. The MARATHON experiment has accessed new details about these particles' ...

Researchers may have just spotted the elusive, ephemeral nucleus of nitrogen-9 for the first time. With seven protons and two neutrons, the lopsided atomic nucleus of nitrogen-9 pushes the limits of ...

We’ve reached the limit of a very successful way to make new elements in the lab. In new research, scientists unveil a new take on that technology and report its success. The heaviest elements could ...