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First Superheavy Element Found In Nature
KentuckyFC writes "The first naturally occurring superheavy element has been found. An international team of scientists found several nuclei of unbibium in a sample of the naturally occurring heavy metal thorium. Unbibium has an atomic number of 122 and an atomic weight of 292. In general, very heavy elements tend to be unstable but scientists have long predicted that even heavier nuclei would be stable. The group that found unbibium in thorium say it has a half life in excess of 100 million years and an abundance of about 10^(-12) relative to thorium, which itself is about as abundant as lead." I'd also like it known that my spell checker did not know 'unbibium' before today, but it is now one word closer to encompassing all human knowledge.
Unbibium is the temporary name, of course. Eventually it will receive another name.
Since it's super-heavy and naturally-occurring, I suggest "Cowboynealium".
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Didn't anyone from Area 51 said that a very heavy element like Ununpentium (115) was supposed to shield us from gravity, thus empowering us to create a flying saucer and travel to other stars and galaxies? I guess that Unbibium (122) is even better...
I am so excited!
Christ - that should be a top level story unto itself... :D
BlackNova Traders
I think its atomic weight it delicious ...
"The group that found unbibium in thorium say it has a half life in excess of 100 million years and an abundance of about 10^(-12) relative to thorium, which itself is about as abundant as lead."
So how soon can we expect it to turn up in pet food and children's toys?
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
All I ever find in thorium are star rubies, blue sapphires, huge emeralds, and Azerothian diamonds.
Here's a link describing the Island of Stability
Neat stuff: apparently they've theorized a bunch of these super-heavy elements, they just haven't been observed yet (until now)!
Submitter's spellcheck becomes self-aware. In a panic, they try to pull the plug. Spellcheck fights back.
Actually, you know what, go ask your mother.
It's important, but I'd hardly call it one of the greatest discoveries made. It just confirms what we've suspected all along--There are stable elements past Uranium. There's a very narrow set of conditions that can synthesize them, and we haven't had alot of luck in the labs, but now that we know nature's managed it, we can possibly devise new experiments better aimed at sucessfuly generating these heavier elements.
As far as how it got there naturally--presumably the same way all the naturally occuring heavy elements came to be--Supernovae billions of years ago.
I'm a professor of isotope geochemistry.
After reading their paper, it's clear they haven't proven their case. There are *so* many possible explanations for the handful of counts they observed that this result should be ignored. Let me give a few:
- Molecular ions. They say there are no known molecular ions at this mass, I say BS. There are lots of observed molecular ions out there whose exact atomic makeup we haven't figured out. The worst is the interference on 87Sr that screws up lots of icpms age dating work and is not 87Kr (or we could correct for it). But there are others.
- Hydrocarbons: They say there are no hydrocarbons in the blank -- have they ever thought of hydrocarbons that are only ionized when lots of other things (ie a sample) is being ionized? No. They exist though, and are difficult to rule out. They didn't try very hard on this one. Try aspirating a solution of something else (U maybe, or Pb) and see what they get on 292. I'll bet there are counts, and they're not superheavies.
Another reason to be skeptical is that their Th solution is chemically purified. How are they going to do that without getting rid of the superheavy, which is after all not Th, and will be removed by any chemical process.
This is highly dubious work.
The last electrons to go in are 5g electrons. So, these nuclei have the only non-excited 5g electrons. It adds another step to the periodic table. This is super neat.
Extra steps.
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
I looked at the abstract for the paper. The ambiguous wording is because they don't know the atomic number of the element yet. They know the atomic mass is 292, and based on theoretical calculations of isotope lifetimes, they hypothesize the atomic number is 122. They haven't confirmed that, though.
They're not formed on earth. The amount they found is presumably all that's left after its "x"th half-life (however many have passed). It was formed into the earth what, 4.5 billion years ago as our planet coalesced from supernova material.
Or at least, that's my best guess.
What, do you think nuclear reactors are build and atomic bombs are dropped on the large, naturally occurring thorium fields that we all remember playing in as children?
Ah, how I remember passing the days on the bountiful thorium fields of my youth, before they paved them over with asphalt. How will the youth of today grow up to be responsible adults without the healthy, life-giving exposure to thorium we all used to get? Good times, good times.
(It never ceases to amaze me how rationality just goes flying out the window, even here, when any subject even remotely related to radiation comes up. I understand why, but it still amazes me.)
Long ago there was found considerable evidence for heavy elements. If you peer at any chunk of mica you can find long dark tracks, longer and darker than are caused by any known type of radioactive decay. The trick is finding incontrovertible proof of these atoms *before* they decay. If they have short half lives (short as in under ten million years or so), it's going to be hard to find their needleness in the haystack.
Single molecules. and nuclei, as conditions allow are detected all the time in mass spectrometers - thats what they do.(actually quantum efficiency of commonly used detectors are not that sensitive and will detect maybe 1 out of every 10 or 100 particle that comes its way - but it takes one lucky particle to make the signal.)
In mass spec, 292 is a common 'background" signal when analyzing organics- most likely from plasticizer - but could be something else. There was no description of the equipment that they used or whether they were detecting singly charged (or - unlikely - the nuclei fully stripped of electrons)
Great discovery if it is what it is.
It's been a long time, but I had read something about a prediction that element 126 was the expected stable superheavy. Just as electrons have shells, and filled shells make elements chemically neutral (like the noble gasses), neuclei have energy shells that occupy a lower ground state energy when completely filled. Based on the known elements, 126 was predicted.
Here's some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbihexium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/84/i10/8410notw9.html
They claim it's half-life is about 10e8 years. Since our solar system is very roughly 1e10 years old, that's about 100 half-lives, or a decrease by a factor of 2^100 or about 1e30. Since its atomic weight is 292, that suggests that an original sample of about 292e7 grams should have decayed to 1e7 moles * 6e23 at/mol / 1e30 = 6 atoms left. In other words, an original chunk of this stuff of mass 2,920,000 kilos would have decayed to 6 atoms. But when you condsider how much mass of all sorts of elements exist on the earth, and take into account chemical concentration, one would think more of this stuff would be around.... maybe. Does anyone know about the frequency of discovery of naturally radioactive isotopes with a similar half-life that are not part of the decay path of other longer lived radioactive isotopes? In other words, is it reasonable to expect to find significant quantities of something with a half-life of around 1e8 years that isn't being formed from other decay products any more?
Also, if the reason it is so rare is because so little was formed, perhaps that indicates it is extremely hard, even in a supernova, to create this element? What does that suggest about our ability to artificially synthesise this element?
Very interestng....