Atoms can be more overweight than we thought, a team of scientists in the United States has discovered. They have sent atoms crashing into one another in a particle accelerator to create bloated ...

QUESTION: Is an atom really hard to break? ANSWER: Not really — we can slice them, dice them, or smash them. Let me explain a little about an atom first, and you will know what I mean. The center of ...

An element's atomic number defines it. An element with 17 protons will always be chlorine. However an element's mass numbers can vary, which means that it can have different numbers of neutrons. So ...

Some atomic nuclei are thin-skinned — they’re surrounded by a slim shell of neutrons. Physicists now know how thick that neutron skin is for one particular type of nucleus. The skin of lead-208 — a ...