These exotic nuclei can help researchers to understand how heavy elements formed when the universe was in its infancy

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A nuclide map

Source: National Nuclear Data Center, information extracted from the NuDat 2 database

The table of nuclides – the counterpart to the periodic table of the elements

 

A Japanese team has discovered 73 new isotopes of elements such as iron, silver and iodine. The team use the word ‘nuclide’, which means something very similar to the word ‘isotope’. However, isotopes must all be from the same element, whereas nuclides are from any element.

 

There are 3000 known nuclides and scientists think that there could be another 4000 left to discover. The nuclides were discovered by firing beams of uranium-238 at a beryllium target. They are all radioactive, with half-lives of only a few milliseconds.

73 new isotopes discovered was first published in Chemistry World.

  • A model of an atom with the nucleus in close up and electron shells surrounding

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