International Team Measures Niobium-94 Neutron Reactions, Explaining Anomalous Molybdenum-94 Abundance in the Solar System
An international team of physicists has, for the first time, conducted a comprehensive study of the interactions between neutrons and the niobium-94 isotope. The findings have been published in Physical Review Letters. The study suggests that the elevated abundance of molybdenum-94 in the primordial material of the solar system can be explained by a series of neutron-involving nuclear reaction processes inside old stars, without requiring the introduction of previously unknown special formation mechanisms. The research was led by Alberto Mengoni, a researcher at the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics. The team conducted experiments using the n_TOF facility at CERN, focusing on tracking the interactions between neutrons and niobium-94 atoms. The n_TOF facility is used to...
2026-08-11
