How to Use neutron in a Sentence

neutron

noun
  • Black holes and neutron stars are both the result of star death.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN, 29 June 2021
  • Both black holes and neutron stars are the remains of dead stars.
    Fox News, 24 June 2020
  • Its value seems to be zero, which makes the neutron’s charges stay in line.
    Quanta Magazine, 27 Nov. 2019
  • The matter that forms neutron stars starts out as ionized atoms near the core of a massive star.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 8 June 2022
  • Each proton and neutron is made up of even tinier quarks and gluons.
    Nandita Jayaraj, Quartz India, 27 Aug. 2019
  • The fission reactor starts with a heavy atom like uranium-235 and hits it with a neutron.
    Rhett Allain, Wired, 10 Nov. 2020
  • The findings hint that nuclei with as many as 260 protons and neutrons might form via the r-process.
    Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 14 May 2024
  • This is seen, for instance, where black holes or neutron stars are in a close orbit such as this.
    Robert Lea, Popular Mechanics, 14 Sep. 2022
  • The idea was that the presence of a neutron would alter how electrons and muons perceive the proton's charge.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 5 Sep. 2019
  • Both neutron stars and black holes are the results of violent star death.
    Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 July 2021
  • The remnant cores of supernovae can form neutron stars: the hottest objects of all.
    Ethan Siegel, Forbes, 14 June 2021
  • That number is the atomic weight—the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the atom.
    Rhett Allain, WIRED, 23 Feb. 2024
  • As the universe cooled, these processes stopped and the ratio of protons to neutrons was set.
    Anne-Katherine Burns, The Conversation, 26 July 2023
  • The inner structure of neutron stars is an open question.
    Sanjana Curtis, Scientific American, 12 Dec. 2022
  • To test the strong nuclear force, physicists turned to the helium-4 nucleus, which has two protons and two neutrons.
    WIRED, 10 Aug. 2023
  • One promethium isotope, with eighty-eight neutrons, has a half-life of a few days; the other, with eighty-six neutrons, has a half-life of a few years.
    Neima Jahromi, The New Yorker, 27 Dec. 2019
  • The nuclei form a wide swath diagonally across the chart, whose lower edge is called the neutron drip line.
    Byadrian Cho, science.org, 26 Oct. 2022
  • Perhaps convergences of black holes and neutron stars do too?
    Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 29 June 2021
  • Like black holes, neutron stars are also formed when a star collapses.
    Mike Snider, USA TODAY, 15 June 2022
  • Most of the lithium on Earth is an isotope called lithium-7, meaning the nucleus has 3 protons and 4 neutrons.
    Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 20 Sep. 2023
  • Only two other types of objects — black holes and neutron stars — are more compact than white dwarfs.
    NBC News, 1 July 2021
  • Black holes and dense neutron stars are often created by the violent event of star death.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN, 16 Feb. 2022
  • Fermions include electrons and the quarks that are the constituents of protons and neutrons in atomic nuclei.
    Philip Ball, Scientific American, 6 Aug. 2019
  • But all of them were much lighter than either a proton or neutron, while being heavier than an electron or a muon.
    Ethan Siegel, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2021
  • Their conversations about protons and neutrons do not the stuff of passion make.
    Eliana Dockterman, TIME, 13 Oct. 2023
  • The collisions of black holes and neutron stars help spread heavier elements, such as gold and platinum.
    Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 7 Oct. 2020
  • The neutron beam scatters according to the chemical makeup of the metal scrap.
    Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 15 Feb. 2021
  • An alpha particle is made of two protons and two neutrons.
    WIRED, 8 Sep. 2023
  • Others—such as gold and uranium, which are the most neutron-rich—require a process called rapid neutron capture.
    Daniel Clery, Science | AAAS, 23 Oct. 2019
  • In rapid neutron capture, also known as the r-process, a seed nucleus grabs free nearby neutrons, quickly taking on the mass to make heavy isotopes.
    Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 14 May 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'neutron.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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