Researchers may have just spotted the elusive, ephemeral nucleus of nitrogen-9 for the first time.
If follow-up studies can confirm the detection, nitrogen-9 will be the first nucleus spotted with five more protons than it can stably hold — until now, the limit was four.
“What are the limits of nuclear existence?” asks nuclear physicist Andreas Heinz of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, who was not involved in the study. That’s what the study’s authors and physicists more generally are trying to understand, he says.
Protons and neutrons, the subatomic particles that make up atomic nuclei, are essentially glued together by the strong nuclear force (SN: 9/13/22). But the force can’t hold together nuclei that have wildly skewed ratios of protons to neutrons. Too many of either particle — especially protons, which repel each other due to their positive charge — and the nuclear bucket starts to overflow.
2023-10-27 12:34:51
Original from www.sciencenews.org
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