Darmstadtium

Darmstadtium is one of the newest elements in the periodic table. It is a highly radioactive element that’s only made in a laboratory. In 1994, scientists at the GSI Heimholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research bombarded a lead-208 target with nickel-62 nuclei, creating four atoms of the new darmstadtium element.

Darmstadtium is named for the city where it was discovered, Darmstadt, Germany, but creating the element was truly an international effort. The GSI team built on the attempts of scientists in the Soviet Union and had collaborated with scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States.

Because darmstadtium decays very quickly—the longest-lived darmstadtium isotope has a half-life of only 13 seconds—scientists cannot measure any of the element’s properties.

Scientists hypothesize that darmstadtium has similar properties to the periodic table’s platinum group metals, such as nickel, palladium, and platinum. It is expected to be dense, heavy, and a noble metal—being resistant to chemicals, acids, and corrosion.

Scientists have produced 11 different darmstadtium isotopes. However, darmstadtium is so unstable that its atoms often stay intact for just a fraction of a second or less. The longest-lived isotope, darmstadtium-281, has a half-life of only 13 seconds.

Darmstadtium is produced by bombarding the nucleus of a heavier atom with the nucleus of a lighter atom, combining the two atoms into one. Only a handful of darmstadtium atoms have ever been made!