The first 117 elements on the periodic table were relatively normal. Then along came element 118.
Oganesson, named for Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian (SN: 1/21/17, p. 16), is the heaviest element currently on the periodic table, weighing in with a huge atomic mass of about 300. Only a few atoms of the synthetic element have ever been created, each of which survived for less than a millisecond. So to investigate
oganesson’s properties, scientists have to rely largely on theoretical predictions.
Recent papers by physicists, including one published in the Feb. 2 Physical Review Letters, detail some of the strange predicted properties of the weighty element.
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