{"id":223891,"date":"2025-10-24T04:20:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/with-a-new-molecule-based-method-physicists-peer-inside-an-atoms-nucleus"},"modified":"2025-10-24T04:20:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:20:04","slug":"with-a-new-molecule-based-method-physicists-peer-inside-an-atoms-nucleus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/with-a-new-molecule-based-method-physicists-peer-inside-an-atoms-nucleus","title":{"rendered":"With a new molecule-based method, physicists peer inside an atom\u2019s nucleus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/with-a-new-molecule-based-method-physicists-peer-inside-an-atoms-nucleus2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Physicists at MIT have developed a new way to probe inside an atom\u2019s nucleus, using the atom\u2019s own electrons as \u201cmessengers\u201d within a molecule.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.adm7717\" target=\"_blank\">study appearing<\/a> today in the journal <i>Science<\/i>, the physicists precisely measured the energy of electrons whizzing around a <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/radium\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">radium<\/a> atom that had been paired with a fluoride atom to make a molecule of radium monofluoride. They used the environments within molecules as a sort of microscopic particle collider, which contained the radium atom\u2019s electrons and encouraged them to briefly penetrate the atom\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/nucleus\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">nucleus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Typically, experiments to probe the inside of atomic nuclei involve massive, kilometers-long facilities that accelerate beams of electrons to speeds fast enough to collide with and break apart nuclei. The team\u2019s new molecule-based method offers a tabletop alternative to directly probe the inside of an atom\u2019s nucleus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Physicists at MIT have developed a new way to probe inside an atom\u2019s nucleus, using the atom\u2019s own electrons as \u201cmessengers\u201d within a molecule. In a study appearing today in the journal Science, the physicists precisely measured the energy of electrons whizzing around a radium atom that had been paired with a fluoride atom to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223891","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}