So, what is its value and impact on our society?
It's an advance in nuclear physics when you get unexpected results.
It is basic research. All it does is help us understand the world better. There are no immediate commercial applications.
But don't let that make you think that basic research isn't important. If people could foresee the results of basic research they wouldn't need to do it. Things like nuclear reactors have come from studies that only a couple of years before were considered basic research.
This is the kind of thing where the benefits are only seen decades later in unexpected ways. Case in point: Early twentieth century relativity and quantum physics led to GPS technology.
“What good is a new baby?” - Max Borne when asked about quantum mechanics.
QM lead to the semiconductor, transistor and pretty much completely changed the way we experience the world.
Jonathan Swift lampooned astronomers’ concern for the course of the stars in heavens. But curiousity about celestial phenomenal lead to Newtonian Mechanics, which in turn created the modern world.
It is important to understand the physical world so that we can know which things are important.
The value to society is making fatter, the wallets of the Peiodic Chart makers.