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11/15/19

ISS astronauts start AMS repair

A series of joint NASA and ESA spacewalks four years in the making aims to extend the life of the AMS particle detector.

Curiouser and curiouser: a riddle at the ALICE detector

12/09/25

In 2023, the ALICE experiment was ready for their best year yet, until a mysterious signal threatened everything. As the LHC wraps up its 2025 lead-ion run, physicists recall how they worked together to solve the puzzle.

08/01/09

He stalks rare prey for its own good

Tom Peterson loves hunting season. He spends his lunch hours scouting the best spots, and weekends lurking around the edges of Fermilab's ponds and moving as silently as he can through old fields.

08/01/09

A scrub+ for SNO+

Imagine a house-sized acrylic fishbowl inside a giant, shiny, disco-ball-like sphere, suspended in a cavern as tall as a 10-story building. Now imagine climbing around inside that pitch-dark fishbowl with a squeegee and a flashlight.

08/01/09

Physics talk 2.0

From his California office, Doug Dechow stretched out on a grassy hill and listened to a particle physics lecture taking place in Chicago.

08/01/09

Cherenkov light

Cherenkov light is the optical equivalent of a sonic boom.

07/01/09

Pierre Auger Observatory

In 1991, James Cronin travelled to Leeds, England, to visit Alan Watson, an expert on cosmic-ray physics. Cronin, a Nobel Prize winner in physics who had worked on accelerator-based particle physics experiments, wanted to discuss ideas for cosmic-ray projects.

07/01/09

Nope, no UFOs at Brookhaven Lab

The spotlight caught Todd Satogata. The camera zoomed in. “Did your particle beam shoot down a UFO?” the TV host asked. The accelerator physicist at RHIC, Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, smiled. Of course not.

07/01/09

Periodic table

Look at the periodic table of elements, and you’d be hard pressed to find an element that is not used in physics. But what are the most important elements for building accelerators, detecting particles, and solving the mysteries of the universe?