Physicists have measured the energy associated with the decay of a metastable state of the thorium-229 nucleus. This is a significant step on the way to a nuclear clock which will be far more precise than the best of today’s atomic timekeepers.

As part of the International Year of the Periodic Table 2019, the Conference on the Chemistry and Physics of Heavy Elements (TAN) taking place in Wilhelmshaven, Germany from the 25th to the 30th of August, brought together the discoverers of new chemical elements in a unique historical gathering. Researchers from Germany, Russia and Japan, who have added new elements to the periodic table in recent years, met at the international congress.

They are among the hottest moments in cosmic events: the collisions of neutron stars in the universe, in which chemical elements are formed. With particle collisions in the accelerator scientists are able to create similar conditions at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and the future FAIR accelerator center. Now, an international group of researchers at the HADES collaboration has succeeded for the first time in measuring the thermal electromagnetic radiation – the so-called…