Scientists are dreaming up ways to probe the nature of the Universe’s smallest bits—quarks—by observing ultra-dense neutron stars slamming into each other. Particle colliders in Switzerland and on ...

Our Sun is powered by a fundamental phenomenon whereby atoms combine to unleash tremendous amounts of energy. But atoms might not be the only things that participate in this explosive reaction.

Scientists using the atom smasher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed a phase transition different than the smooth transition of the early universe from the ...

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider will soon be smashing oxygen and neon atoms into other atoms of their own kind as part of its ATLAS experiment. The collisions will happen under enough heat and pressure ...

A pair of top quarks has been detected in the detritus spraying forth from the collision of two atoms of lead. This means that we're a step closer to taking new measurements of this primordial soup, ...

Atoms are made of three things: protons, neutrons, and electrons. Electrons are a type of fundamental particle, but protons and neutrons are composite particles made of up and down quarks. Protons ...

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MIT physicists now have an answer to a question in nuclear physics that has puzzled scientists for three decades: Why do quarks move more slowly inside larger atoms? Quarks, along with gluons, are the ...