Image of the emission of 4 neutrons (blue spheres) from the exotic nucleus oxygen-28, which consists of 8 protons (red spheres) and 20 neutrons. According to the traditional model, the nucleons inside ...

Since the atomic nucleus was first proposed in 1911, physicists simply assumed it was round. But are the nuclei of atoms really round? Intuitively this shape makes sense and physicists believed it ...

Some atoms are stable, while others seem to fall apart. Lead-208 will probably last forever, while the synthetic isotope technetium-99 exists for just hours. The difference lies in the structure of ...