Protons are tiny particles just a femtometer across, but without them, atoms wouldn't exist. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Examining the smallest parts of the universe often takes the biggest kinds of equipment. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a unique piece of equipment the size of a building is ...

The “lead” of a pencil is actually made of a substance called graphite which is made of carbon atoms. The picture shows a close-up of one carbon atom. A hydrogen atom has one proton as the nucleus and ...

Look around you (or, if you’re sight impaired, touch something). Everything solid, liquid, or gas that you see and feel is made of matter. We sometimes call it “normal” matter, though with dark matter ...

Mrs Roberts: What do you think you're made of? Mr Spellman: Big question. Grit, determination, hard-working, handsome, charming, funny. Mrs Roberts: Well, I guess. But you're actually made of atoms.

Learn all about the 118 combinations of protons, neutrons and electrons that make up our world. Whether hung on classroom walls, put up in dorm rooms or screen-printed on T-shirts, the periodic table ...

Physicists have known for decades that particles called gluons keep protons and neutrons intact—and thereby hold the universe together. Yet the details of how gluons function remain surprisingly ...

If you hit an atom’s nucleus hard enough, it will fall apart. But exactly how it falls apart tells us something about the internal structure of the nucleus and perhaps about the interior of neutron ...