"Our Sun (Sol) is marked by a black hexagon, and its orbital path is indicated by a grey solid line (top row only). Alpha Centauri's location and path are shown by a yellow star and a solid blue line ...

As part of an experiment with x-rays in 1909, Rutherford was shooting a beam of alpha particles (or alpha rays, emitted by the radioactive element radium) at a sheet of gold foil only 1/3000 of an ...

The vacuum is important because any deflection of the alpha particles would only be because of collisions with the gold foil and not due to deflections off anything else. It was thought that the ...

Gamma radiation does not consist of particles but as short wavelength, high energy electromagnetic radiation emitted from unstable nuclei. It is normally emitted alongside alpha or beta radiation.