Monday, July 3, 2023 06:24 PM
Scientists have identified a new isotope for the rarest element in our planet’s crust with 85 protons and 105 neutrons, and 190astatine is the lightest isotope discovered so far, RT reported.
“Studies of new nuclei are important for understanding the structure of atomic nuclei and the known limits of matter,” says physicist Hanna Kokkonen of Jyväskylä University in Finland.
Astatine is highly radioactive and very unstable, and it only occurs in nature as a kind of starting point, a product of the decay of heavy elements which in turn rapidly decay into lighter elements. The most stable isotope of the element astatine is 210astatine.
This is the reason why it is rarely found in nature, as there is hardly one gram of it on our planet at one moment, and it forms, then steps down again, and releases protons and neutrons until it lands in the form of a stable element, an element like bismuth or radon, and given that it is short-lived, its properties Derived largely from inference and not known for certain.
We do not even know for sure whether it is a halogen or a metal, it is a very strange element, there are no bones in it, but studying it can help us not only to understand the element itself, but also to understand the distortion of the nuclei of different isotopes, and radioactive decay.
The research was conducted using a device called a gas-filled reflux separator, and it is used to conduct fusion and evaporation experiments. This occurs when heavy ions in the target nuclei are accelerated to fuse into heavier elements, to then decay through the alpha process, releasing alpha particles consisting of two protons and two neutrons (mainly helium). until you settle down.
The researchers fired 84 astronomy at the target silver atoms, and studied the resulting decay products. They weren’t looking for 190astatine, but 190astatine was exactly what they found.
“In my thesis, I analyzed the experimental data among which the new isotope was found,” explains Kokkonen.
Previously, the most neutron-deficient isotope known to us was 192astatine. The researchers analyzed the new discovery, and compared it to the predictions of atomic mass models to see if it could tell us anything new about astatine.
This seems consistent with what we know about the element, alpha decay. The half-life of the isotope is only 1 millisecond, and the energy level is 7750 keV, which is fairly normal. It just means that it was immediate, not delayed, which can happen in some radioactive isotopes of heavy elements.
Source: Technology News: Physicists find a new atomic nucleus that helps understand the known limits of matter
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