An international group of scientists has confirmed the existence of a new superheavy chemical element that has the atomic number 115 , previously suggested by Russian researchers. If officially recognized, ununpentium would become part of the periodic table.
"It has been a successful experiment and one of the most important in chemistry in recent years," said Dirk Rudolph, a physicist at the University of Lund (Germany) and co-author of the finding. By bombarding a thin film of americium with calcium ions, the researchers measured photons related to the alpha decay of the new element. Certain energies of the photons match the energies expected for X-ray radiation, which is considered a 'fingerprint' of each element. Physicists have reported in The Physical Review Letters that the name ununpentium (Uup) is only provisional and obeys the atomic number.
Ununpentium, like all new chemical elements, will be evaluated by members of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics to confirm its existence. In 2011, the names of three new elements were approved that have the atomic numbers 110, 111 and 112, baptized respectively as darmstadtium (Ds), roentgenium (Rg) and copernicium (Cn). The most recently approved element has been livermorio, with atomic number 116.
