billiards

Protons accelerated almost to the speed of light can collide similarly to billiard balls. However, since protons are quantum particles, from measuring such collisions we can learn unobvious things about the strong interaction. Credit: IFJ PANA study conducted by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Accelerator has gained insights into the properties of strong interactions between protons at ultra-high energies by exploring elastic scattering in proton-proton collisions. The research found discrepancies with…

On 26 September, an act of targeted violence will ensue 11 million kilometers from Earth, as a spacecraft about the size of a vending machine smashes into a small asteroid at 6 kilometers per second. Unlike some asteroids that stray worrisomely close to Earth’s orbit, Dimorphos—the 160-meter moon of a larger body—is an innocent bystander, posing no threat to our world. But the looming assault represents humanity’s first-ever field test of a planetary defense mission: NASA’s…