Latest Carbon-12 Stories

North Carolina State University Life as we know it is based upon the elements of carbon and oxygen. Now a team of physicists, including one from North Carolina State University, is looking at the conditions necessary to the formation of those two elements in the universe. They’ve found that when it comes to supporting life, the universe leaves very little margin for error. Both carbon and oxygen are produced when helium burns inside of giant red stars. Carbon-12, an essential element...

North Carolina State University A North Carolina State University researcher has taken a “snapshot” of the way particles combine to form carbon-12, the element that makes all life on Earth possible.  And the picture looks like a bent arm. Carbon-12 can only exist when three alpha particles, or helium-4 nuclei, combine in a very specific way. This combination is known as the Hoyle state. NC State physicist Dean Lee and German colleagues Evgeny Epelbaum, Hermann Krebs and Ulf-G....

Individual atoms of a certain chemical element can be very stubborn when it comes to separation, mainly because techniques rely on a difference in chemical and physical properties — atoms are almost identical in both regards. However, if you peer closely enough into the atoms, there are subtle differences that can have very big effects. These "different" atoms, called isotopes, are heavily relied on in areas of medicine and nuclear energy and now researchers have proposed a novel way of...