Two New Elements Discovered |
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Written by spacetravel.org
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Saturday, 23 April 2005 13:33 |
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Two new super-heavy elements, temporarily known as ununtrium (atomic number 113, ununtrium is a temporary name meaning 113) and ununpentium (atomic number 115, ununpentium is a temporary name meaning 115) have been discovered in the lab by a team consisting of Russian scientists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) and American scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Glenn T. Seaborg institute. JINRs cyclotron was used to bombard a target with intense beams of heavy ions. Element 115 was created three times; each time decaying into element 113, then breaking down further.
All super-heavy elements have atomic numbers greater than 112, the atomic number being the number of protons in the nucleus. All super-heavy elements are made artificially. Scientists hope that the discovery of these new elements will lead to new advances in technology.
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