Lightest uranium isotope yet reveals nuclear stability secrets

The lightest isotope of uranium to date has been created in China, and researchers believe it could help to understand the complex nuclear forces at play inside an atom as it decays.

Working at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou, China, an international team of collaborators led by Zhiyuan Zhang used a particle accelerator to fire argon ions into a tungsten target, hoping to create uranium isotopes with far fewer neutrons than usual. When they separated out the products of the reaction, the team discovered a previously unknown isotope, uranium-214, which has just 122 neutrons – 24 neutrons fewer than the most abundant uranium isotope, uranium-238.