For three months in 2019, physicists blasted a beam of electrons at lead atoms that were held in place by foil made of diamond. The team was trying to determine the thickness of the neutron skin, the ...

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 ...

The precise measurement of an exotic atom in the laboratory has refined scientists’ understanding of neutron stars, which are among the universe’s most extreme objects. The study, published January 22 ...

Physicists have measured the “skin” of an atom for the first time and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is extremely thin. The measurement may help us understand the properties of neutron stars. Lead-208, ...