Element 117

Watch animation of the discovery of the newest member of the Period Table of the Elements.

An international team of scientists from Russia and the United States, including two Department of Energy national laboratories and two universities, has discovered the newest superheavy element, element 117.

The team included scientists from the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research (Dubna, Russia), the Research Institute for Advanced Reactors (Dimitrovgrad), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Animation by Kwei-Yu Chu/LLNL

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• element
• 117
• llnl
• lawrence livermore
• dubna

[Floopman15]

This element should be called Mastercheifium.

[pinksock133]

But, Will it blend?

[worseto1]

should be named the Lazar element.

[pooppeeyoupants]

@pinksock133 nonono it will not blend, instead, you will die if you try XD.

[ryanlak1234]

@TrutherGuy1 No, according to "physicist" Bob Lazar, it's element 115, or unumpentium.

[darkunorthodox]

before this was discovered, they were 117 elements discovered and only element 117 was left, cool huh?

[Prstvlkkrtek]

@DrZ14 Fission is always random. Let's say the element with the atomic number 113, ununtrium, is the one that fissions. One possibility is tellurium and promethium (52 + 61 = 113). However, it could also be xenon with praseodymium (54 + 59) or perhaps caesium and cerium (55 + 58). Long story short: it is a random process and there is more than one possibility.

[shimmerspear]

so what makes this different or supperior to other fission processes?

[JMaxfield09]

BERK-lium?? I was more sold on ber-KEE-lium.

[mdma4life]

@DrZ14

The two fission fragments can be a variety of elements, it depends on how many protons ended up in one of the fragment atoms and how many protons into the other.

That's why nuclear fission fallout is particularly bad, U236 fissions into many different radioactive nuclei, which then decay either very rapidly (or slowly) into other radioactive nuclei which may then decay again rapidly or not (etc.)

[winder487]

I thought that ununoctium was the latest one.