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 ...

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, ...

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 ...