Posted
on November 9, 2016
I
like my elements stable!
Like
any other living thing, I do better when the carbon and oxygen around
me isn't breaking down into other elements and leaking radiation in
the process.
Almost
all of the oxygen and carbon on Earth are stable isotopes, but Oxygen
15 and Carbon 14 and other radioactive isotopes do exist in trace
amounts. Oxygen 15 breaks down very quickly – after just a bit more
than 2 minutes, half of the 15-O atoms will convert themselves to
fluorine or nitrogen. Carbon 14 is more weakly radioactive; it takes
about 5,730 years for half of these atoms to convert themselves to
stable Nitrogen 14 atoms.
Today
we celebrate an element that is much more of a “flash in the pan,”
even, than Oxygen 15: darmstadtium.
On
this date in 1994, a research group in Germany created the first
known darmstadtium in the Institute for Heavy Ion Research. That
institute is located in Darmstadt – hence the name!
And
the longest-existing darmstadtium isotope doesn't last for thousands
of years or even a couple of minutes – its half life is only 9 to
11 seconds! That means that, just 10 (or so) seconds after being
created, about half of the darmstadtium atoms have decayed into
lighter elements.
Most
isotopes of darmstadtium break down in mere milliseconds.
Darmstadtium
has the symbol Ds and the atomic number 110. It always has 110
protons, and various isotopes have from 150 to 170 neutrons (the more
neutrons, the more stable the darmstadtium atom, for the most part).
Also
on this date:
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