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Article: New element made?(physical)(Brief article)
- Article from:
- Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- January 19, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Weekly Reader Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DUBNA, Russia -- Do you have a square to spare? The periodic table might need it. A team of Russian and U.S. chemists claims to have synthesized a new element.
The element is an artificial one, created in a lab. The first 92 elements in the periodic table are all found in nature. But the elements after that are artificial.
The new element was made in a particle accelerator, a device that uses electric fields to propel particles to high speeds. The accelerator bombarded californium atoms (atomic number: 98) with calcium atoms (atomic number: 20), and up popped atoms with the new atomic number 118. The process took several months and a barrage of billions ...