![]() They look for telltale signs for when 115 disintegrates, by what's called alpha particle emission. How did they know they created a new element if it happened so quickly? I think I read that it existed for less than a second before it decayed. When that happens, you get a short-lived atom with more protons in its nucleus, which is the center of the new element 115. Most of the calcium atoms bounced off, but every now and then the atoms collided and instead of the calcium element bouncing off, it actually stuck to the americium element. They fired calcium atoms-which are much lighter than americium atoms-at the americium for weeks or even months. In this case, the researchers used americium, which is kind of interesting because it's an unstable, radioactive element. The way that you make new elements now is by shooting a beam of an element at another element and then seeing what happens when they collide. So what did the Russian and Swedish chemists actually do? This is the second lab coming in and repeating the same experiment, so now it's considered to be an official new element. You need two different labs to confirm it before considers adding it to the periodic table. ![]() When you find a new element, it has to be confirmed. Why are we just learning about its discovery? So it sounds like 115 was actually created ten years ago, by a lab in Russia. We asked Paul Hooker, a chemistry professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, for his take on the latest addition to the periodic table. (See pictures of the labs where new elements are created.)Įlement 115 will join its neighbors 114 and 116-flerovium and livermorium, respectively-on the periodic table just as soon as a committee from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) decides on an official name for 115. This week, chemists at Lund University in Sweden announced that they had replicated the Russian study at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Germany. The man-made 115 was first created by Russian scientists in Dubna about ten years ago. But heavier elements-which have more protons in their nucleus-can be created through nuclear fusion. The heaviest element in nature is uranium, which has 92 protons. In case you forgot your high school chemistry, here's a quick refresher: An element's atomic number is the number of protons it contains in its nucleus. ![]() (Related: Read a feature on element hunters in National Geographic magazine.) The new element doesn't have an official name yet, so scientists are calling it ununpentium, based on the Latin and Greek words for its atomic number, 115. If you've learned all the elements from actinium to zirconium, it's time to head back to the periodic table, where there's a new, extremely heavy element in town.
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