The periodic table just got a new addition, meet super-heavy element 117
Australian scientists have helped to create a brand spanking new element that will soon be added to the periodic table.
The super-heavy element 117 (for now, it's also temporarily being named ununseptium) was created in a lab by a team of international scientists. Its atoms match the heaviest atoms ever observed, which are 40 percent heavier than lead.
In a press release, David Hinde from the Australian National University Nuclear Physics Department explains: “Making element 117 is at the absolute boundary of what is possible right now.
“That’s why it’s a triumph to create and identify even a few of these atoms.”
Element 117 has 117 protons and has not been found in nature, but can be made by fusing together the nuclei of smaller atoms.
It's easy to identify by its characteristic rate of radioactive decay, which occurs within just a tenth of a second.
And things are set to get even more interesting, with initial evidence of the creation of element 118 found in Russia.
Hinde's already planning for the future: “The big question is, how can we create elements 119 and 120?”
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry now just has to accept the confirmation before it's officially added to the periodic table - and someone needs to decide on a name.
Scientists, we love you.
Now, let's all brush up on the existing periodic table family with AsapSCIENCE.
The super-heavy element 117 (for now, it's also temporarily being named ununseptium) was created in a lab by a team of international scientists. Its atoms match the heaviest atoms ever observed, which are 40 percent heavier than lead.
In a press release, David Hinde from the Australian National University Nuclear Physics Department explains: “Making element 117 is at the absolute boundary of what is possible right now.
“That’s why it’s a triumph to create and identify even a few of these atoms.”
Element 117 has 117 protons and has not been found in nature, but can be made by fusing together the nuclei of smaller atoms.
It's easy to identify by its characteristic rate of radioactive decay, which occurs within just a tenth of a second.
And things are set to get even more interesting, with initial evidence of the creation of element 118 found in Russia.
Hinde's already planning for the future: “The big question is, how can we create elements 119 and 120?”
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry now just has to accept the confirmation before it's officially added to the periodic table - and someone needs to decide on a name.
Scientists, we love you.
Now, let's all brush up on the existing periodic table family with AsapSCIENCE.
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