The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.
Physicists have begun to explore the proton as if it were a subatomic planet. Cutaway maps display newfound details of the particle’s interior. The proton’s core features pressures more intense than in any other known form of matter. Halfway to the surface, clashing vortices of force push against each other. And the “planet” as a whole is smaller than previous experiments had suggested.
The experimental investigations mark the next stage in the quest to understand the particle that anchors every atom and makes up the bulk of our world.
“We really see it as opening up a completely new direction that will
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