Seven years ago, a scientist accomplished what no one else had before: capturing an image of a single atom. This stunning ...

Nuclear fission has powered our world and medical advancements for decades. What exactly happens when an atom's nucleus splits into two parts?

Number of protons Z = 30 Number of protons + neutrons A = 64 Number of neutrons N = 64 - 30 = 34 Since this is a nucleus there are no electrons There are 30 protons and 34 neutrons.

When two hydrogen atoms get close enough, the electron from each atom feels an attraction from the proton in the other atom's nucleus. This attraction pulls the atoms together. The electrons end up ...

Beyond the simplistic models of protons and neutrons clustered together like gumballs in a dispenser, the nucleus of a ...

A sodium and chlorine atom are near each other. An electron from each atom feels the attraction from the other atom's nucleus. The attraction by chlorine is stronger than the attraction by sodium. An ...

Nuclear fission—when the nucleus of an atom splits in two, releasing energy—may seem like a process that is fully understood. First discovered in 1939 and thoroughly studied ever since, fission is a ...

The nucleus is very small compared to the atom as a whole: as electrons are even smaller, most of an atom is empty space the diameter of a nucleus can be 100,000 times less than the diameter of an ...

What’s the safest place to store important information? No, it’s not your external hard drive or some secret cloud ...

The simple reason is that it takes much more energy to excite a nucleus into a higher energy state than it does an atom. Atomic clocks typically excite cesium atoms with photons of energy 4 x 10-5 ...