{"id":100406,"date":"2020-01-02T12:06:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T20:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/theres-a-giant-mystery-hiding-inside-every-atom-in-the-universe"},"modified":"2020-01-02T12:06:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T20:06:01","slug":"theres-a-giant-mystery-hiding-inside-every-atom-in-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/theres-a-giant-mystery-hiding-inside-every-atom-in-the-universe","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a Giant Mystery Hiding Inside Every Atom in the Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/theres-a-giant-mystery-hiding-inside-every-atom-in-the-universe3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>No one really knows what happens inside an atom. But two competing groups of scientists think they\u2019ve figured it out. And both are racing to prove that their own vision is correct.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what we know for sure: Electrons whiz around \u201corbitals\u201d in an atom\u2019s outer shell. Then there\u2019s a whole lot of empty space. And then, right in the center of that space, there\u2019s a tiny nucleus \u2014 a dense knot of protons and neutrons that give the atom most of its mass. Those protons and neutrons cluster together, bound by what\u2019s called the strong force. And the numbers of those protons and neutrons determine whether the atom is iron or oxygen or xenon, and whether it\u2019s radioactive or stable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one really knows what happens inside an atom. But two competing groups of scientists think they\u2019ve figured it out. And both are racing to prove that their own vision is correct. Here\u2019s what we know for sure: Electrons whiz around \u201corbitals\u201d in an atom\u2019s outer shell. Then there\u2019s a whole lot of empty space. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}