Seeing into the Past.

Since the 1970s, U.S. national laboratories have relied on neutron imaging to develop and maintain the nation's nuclear weapons stockpiles; the neutrons are powerful quality-control tools for mapping out the insides of dense bomb parts and for studying hydrogen-rich fusion explosives inside warhead components. Opening a new window to the past Despite the increasing popularity of neutron tomography for studying fossils and antiquities, X-ray CT remains the go-to imaging choice for most researchers. Although neutrons have been used for imaging in industrial and military applications since shortly after the neutron was discovered in 1932, it's only in the last few decades that these subatomic particles have begun to provide scientists with unprecedented views inside fossils and antiquities. At NIST, LaManna leads the Neutron and X-ray Tomography, or NeXT, facility, which can simultaneously run X-ray and neutron imaging. [Extracted from the article]