Super Heavy Discoveries

Having glanced many a time at the periodic table I had always found it unsettling that a good portion of the listed elements, mainly those rare, hard to create, exist - for - a - split - second guys at the bottom of the table, did not have truly specifically known masses but only estimates of their true values. In a science of accuracy and precision it seemed to me that these elements were the black sheep of the elemental world. For that reason I was elated to find this article at the following link, which contains the potential science to make sense of those mysterious elements, possibly to find more and hopefully long lasting ones at that. Michael Block, the head researcher at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, and his team have recently caught hold of the element nobelium, element 102, in a ion trap known as Shiptrap and taken its atomic mass to a degree of accuracy never reached in the measurement of "super heavy" elements. By firing calcium ions onto lead foil they were able to come by some of these nobelium atoms, and the researchers add that the trapping and massing of the nobelium atoms is only the first step of their plans. They hope to reach a point in elemental creation and subsequent trapping to find an element in a so called "island of stability", predicted to be between the atomic weights of 114 and 120, which can yield long lasting super heavy elements. Periodic tables everywhere may be changing their numbers around with Mr. Block's team's continued research, and maybe someday new members of the elemental list will need to be welcomed in.

http://www.chemistrytimes.com/research/Setting_out_to_discover_new_long-lived_elements.asp

Posted by Charlie Moore