In a single experiment, physicists have measured the "excess" emission of high-energy gamma rays from more than a dozen heavy ...

Nuclear fission—when the nucleus of an atom splits in two, releasing energy—may seem like a process that is fully understood. First discovered in 1939 and thoroughly studied ever since, fission is a ...

Outdone only by nuclear fusion, the process of nuclear fission releases enormous amounts of energy. The ‘spicy rocks’ that are at the core of both natural and artificial fission reactors are generally ...

An international team of scientists has identified an unexpected region of heavy, neutron-deficient isotopes in the nuclear chart where nuclear fission is predominantly governed by an asymmetric mode.