• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Element 120 On The Horizon As New Way To Synthesize Element 116 Found

July 27, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Element 116 has been made with a new method – a step towards synthesizing element 120, a hypothetical element hypothesized to be in the long-predicted “island of stability”, in the lab.

Advertisement

Elements are defined by the number of protons in their nucleus, with hydrogen having one, helium having two, and uranium has 92 protons. The number of neutrons can vary, with different elements needing different numbers of neutrons to be stable (or at least long-lasting), with many elements having several different versions, known as isotopes.

Though uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element that we know of, scientists have synthesized heavier elements in the lab.

“The production of SuperHeavy Elements (SHE), and the investigation of their nuclear properties, stands as an important frontier in modern nuclear physics, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the fundamental constituents of matter,” the Berkeley Lab team explains in their new paper.

Though not exactly in a linear fashion, elements become less stable the heavier they get. Element 115, moscovium, has a half-life of just 220 milliseconds in the form of moscovium-289, decaying before scientists can do much in the way of studying it. The heaviest element created by scientists – element 118, oganesson, first obtained in 2002 – has a half-life of less than a millisecond.

So why go heavier if even the most stable superheavy elements decay with lightning speed? Looking at the stable isotopes of elements we do know about, scientists have predicted the “island of stability” further up the periodic table containing elements that might not decay so quickly.

Advertisement



In the new study, as a stepping stone to creating element 120, the team attempted to make element 116 using a different method. Usually, heavier elements between 114 and 118 are made by bombarding target nuclei with a calcium-48 beam. The team instead used titanium-50, despite uncertainty about whether it could be used to make heavier elements.

Doing so was not easy, requiring the team to vaporize titanium-50 in a tiny oven before using a complex superconducting magnet and free electrons bombarded with microwaves to increase their energy in order to knock away 12 of the titanium’s 22 electrons. This was then maneuvered and accelerated using magnets, and used to bombard plutonium in order to make element 116. About about 6 trillion titanium ions hit the target every second before the element is separated from the debris using magnets.

“We’re very confident that we’re seeing element 116 and its daughter particles,” Jacklyn Gates, a nuclear scientist at Berkeley Lab said in a statement, referring to elements that 116 decays into. “There’s about a 1 in 1 trillion chance that it’s a statistical fluke.”

Advertisement

Now that element 116 has been synthesized using this groundbreaking method, the team has its sights set on creating element 120.

“It was an important first step to try to make something a little bit easier than a new element to see how going from a calcium beam to a titanium beam changes the rate at which we produce these elements,” Jennifer Pore, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Heavy Element Group, added. “When we’re trying to make these incredibly rare elements, we are standing at the absolute edge of human knowledge and understanding, and there is no guarantee that physics will work the way we expect. Creating element 116 with titanium validates that this method of production works and we can now plan our hunt for element 120.”

Element 120, as well as being further up the table than any element we have produced, is nearing the island of stability. Were we able to produce an element there, it could be stable enough for scientists to study its properties – or perhaps even find a use for it. The team will attempt to make element 120 by bombarding californium-249, after first synthesizing it and making adjustments to their equipment, hopefully beginning work in 2025. The team believes it may take around 10 times longer to produce, but are optimistic that it is feasible.

“We’ve shown that we have a facility capable of doing this project, and that the physics seems to make it feasible,” Kruecken said. “Once we get our target, shielding, and engineering controls in place, we will be ready to take on this challenging experiment.”

Advertisement

The study is posted to pre-print server arXiv and is submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. U.S. banking lobby groups oppose proposed tax reporting law
  2. Video Shows Albert Einstein Explaining His Most Famous Equation
  3. Secret Service Agent At JFK Assassination Casts Doubt On Single Bullet Theory
  4. If Brain Transplants Like The One In Poor Things Were Possible, This Is How They Might Work

Source Link: Element 120 On The Horizon As New Way To Synthesize Element 116 Found

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • How Do You Study Cryptic Species? We’re Finally Lifting The Lid On The World’s Least Understood Mammals
  • Once-In-A-Decade Close Encounter With Hazardous Asteroid 2025 FA22 Approaches
  • With 229 Pairs, This Beautiful Animal Has The Highest Number Of Chromosomes Of Any Animal
  • “An Unimaginable Breakthrough”: Loudest-Ever Gravitational Wave Collision Proves Stephen Hawking Correct
  • Exciting Martian Mudstone Has Features That Might Be Considered Biosignatures
  • How Long Did Dinosaurs Live? “It’s A Big Surprise To People That Work On Them”
  • NASA’s Mysterious Announcement: “Clearest Sign Of Life That We’ve Ever Found On Mars”
  • New Brain Implant Can Decode Your Internal Monologue, Raising Fears Of Mind Reading
  • “Immediate, Sustained, And Devastating” Pain: The Most Venomous Mammal Packs An Extremely Nasty Sting
  • Domestic Cats Keeping Making Hybrids. That’s A Problem, And Yes – That Includes Some Pets
  • These Strange Little Lizards Have Toxic Green Blood, And No One Knows Exactly Why
  • How Does 2-In-1 Shampoo And Conditioner Work?
  • There Are 2-Billion-Year-Old “Millennium Rocks” In A Suburb, Hundreds Of Miles From Their Primeval Home
  • “That’s A Hellfire Missile Smacking Into That UFO”: Strange Video Emerges From US UAP Hearing
  • In 40,000 Years, Voyager 1 Will Have A Close Encounter With Gliese 445
  • Abnormally Long Gamma Ray Burst Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before Baffles Astronomers
  • Critically Endangered Shark Meat Is Being Sold In US Stores For As Little As $2.99
  • Infectious Mouth Bacteria Lurking In Artery Plaques Could Be Behind Some Heart Attacks
  • What Would You Reach If You Kept Digging Under Antarctica?
  • First Visible Time Crystals Ever Made Have Astonishing Complexity And Practical Potential
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version