The internal structure of a proton, with quarks, gluons, and quark spin shown. The nuclear force acts like a spring, with negligible force when unstretched but large, attractive forces when stretched ...

Things happen fast in the earliest stages of the Universe. In the first 25 microseconds after the start of the hot Big Bang, a number of incredible events have already occurred. The Universe created ...

The atomic nucleus is a busy place. Its constituent protons and neutrons occasionally collide, and briefly fly apart with high momentum before snapping back together like the two ends of a stretched ...

The stuff you scrape off burnt toast is made primarily of atoms of carbon. But what makes up a carbon atom—or any other atom? The first subatomic particle to be identified was the electron, in 1898.

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 stars in the universe, born ...

The structure of a neutron or a proton is modified when the particle is bound in an atomic nucleus. Experimental data suggest an explanation for this phenomenon that could have broad implications for ...

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 ...

IN the theory of decay as proposed by Fermi 1, one assumes the existence of elementary processes in which a neutron is transformed into a proton by simultaneous creation of an electron and a neutrino.