WORLD BRIEFING / GERMANY
A super-heavy chemical element numbered 112 will soon be officially included in the periodic table, German researchers said.
A team in the southwest German city of Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 130-yard-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target. The zinc and lead nuclei fused to form the nucleus of the new element.
“The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table,” the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement.
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