Setting out to discover new, long-lived elements
Besides the 92 elements that occur naturally, scientists were able to create 20 additional chemical elements, six of which were discovered at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt. These new elements were produced artificially with particle accelerators and are all very short-lived: they decay in a matter of a split second. However, scientists predict the existence of even heavier elements with an extreme longevity, leaving them to only decay after years. These elements form an island of stability. Scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt have developed and applied a measuring apparatus that might allow them to discover such long-lived elements, reports the renowned scientific journal Nature...