An atom consists of a heavy center, called the nucleus, made of particles called protons and neutrons. An atom has lighter ...

The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses.

What happens when the smallest building blocks of matter refuse to play by the rules of traditional physics? For decades, ...

Far lighter than other ions collided at the LHC, oxygen (and neon) could tell us about conditions in the early universe.

THE neutron is usually looked upon as an aggregate of a proton and an electron. If it were so, there ought to be a strong tendency for hydrogen atoms to be converted spontaneously into neutrons ...

Protons and neutrons also have another property — kind of like a different type of charge — that is strong enough to bind them together once they are able to get very close together.

Two studies fill in gaps about the cosmos’s ordinary matter. One maps it all, even the “missing matter.” The other details one of its hiding spots.

In a study published in Physical Review Letters, scientists at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung have discovered ...

While gluons are responsible for generating most of the visible mass in the universe, their role inside nuclei remains poorly ...

Uranium has civilian uses that have nothing to do with weapons. For a bomb, the uranium needs to be a lot more concentrated.