Recently a team of scientists at the Berkeley Lab has reported some of the properties of element 99 in the periodic table called “Einsteinium”.
- It first showed up in the explosive debris of the first hydrogen bomb in 1952.
- The Einsteinium has been named after famous scientist Albert Einstein.
- The Einsteinium sits near the bottom of the periodic table of chemical elements, between californium and fermium.
- It is highly radioactive. Because there are no stable versions that do not fall apart within a few years, it is not found in nature.
- The element is also not visible to the naked eye and after it was discovered, it took over nine years to manufacture enough of it so that it could be seen with the naked eye.
- It can be produced in a few specialized nuclear reactors, but only in minute amounts.
(Source: NYT and Indian Express)
