New insights into the mechanism of nuclear fissionNuclear physicists at the University of Cologne have contributed to an international research collaboration to show the way the spin of the two fragments, resulting from the splitting of an atomic nucleus, is generated / publication in Nature A series of experiments at the ALTO particle accelerator facility in Orsay, France, has revealed that the fragments resulting from nuclear fission obtain their intrinsic angular momentum (or spin) after fission, not before, as is widely assumed.