Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. Element one fifteen is an enigma of sorts. It was only added to the periodic table in yet for decades it has attracted attention because of a supposed connection to extraterrestrial technology and alien life forms. Intrigued, Before we answer whether there is a connection,
let's find out what element one fifteen really is. First off, as with all elements on the periodic table, the elements number corresponds to the number of protons and the nucleus of the elements atom always spoke by email with Jacqueline Gates, a scientist with the Heavy Elements Group in the Nuclear Science Division for Berkeley Lab in California. She explained Element one fifteen, or moscovium, is a man made super heavy element that has a hundred and fifteen protons in its nucleus.
That is twenty three more protons and the heaviest element you can find in large quantities on Earth Uranium. Element one fifteen is an extremely rare element that's made one atom at a time in particle accelerators. It exists for just a fraction of a second before it decays into another element. Gates said it's special because it's near a predicted island of stability where some super heavy nuclei might
have much longer lifetimes. Instead of living for less than a second, they could exist for minutes, days, or even years. That is long enough that we might be able to use them for practical applications. Element one fifteen was discovered in two thousand three in Russia at the Flora of Laboratory for nuclear reactions. In the past fifty years, the lab has discovered nine new elements, including the sixth most recent. One fifteen was eventually named moscovium because laboratory is in Moscow.
To make this element, the scientists accelerated ions of calcium forty eight to around ten per of the speed of light and then bombarded American two forty three with them. Through this bombardment, they were able to successfully fuse the nuclei of these atoms, producing four atoms of moscovium. Gates explained, to create a super heavy element, you need the complete
fusion of two lighter elements. Of The new element that they made had a hundred and fifteen protons twenty from the calcium forty eight and ninety five from the americum to forty three. This new element was then separated from all the other reaction products using a gas filled recoil separator and then implanted into a detector where scientists were able to watch element one fifteen decay into element one thirteen. It took years for researchers to work out some of
the details about moscovia. It wasn't until twenty eighteen the Berkeley Lab scientists figured out that the element's mass or atomic weight, that is, the total number of protons and neutrons in the atom, was two eighty eight. To nab this vital number, they repeated the process that the first
discoverers used to pin down the element. In doing so, they managed to produce roughly one atom of muscovium per day, and that atom was captured by an instrument called FIONA, an acronym meaning for the identification of nu glide a, which to the untrained eye looks like a small metal bank vault. So far, muscovium doesn't have a practical use outside of scientific study, But what about that potential alien connection.
Element one fifteen was only discovered in two thousand three, but it may sound familiar because the name has been around for decades in connection with UFOs, aliens and other related phenomena. We're referring to the long lived story of Bob Scott Lazar, who went public with what he said
was top secret information about Element one fifteen. Lazar claimed to be a former employee at Area fifty one, the infamous and highly classified area of the Nevada Test and Training Range operated by the United States Air Force, where he said his job was to reverse engineer crashed alien flying saucers. He said that he had personally worked with Element one fifteen, which was used to pilot alien spacecraft. Lazar said it was quote impossible to synthesize an element
that heavy here on Earth. The substance has to come from a place where super heavy elements could have been produced naturally. Lazar claimed that he had seen evidence of anti gravity propulsion technologies and nine alien spacecraft stored in the hangar at Area fifty one. Those spaceships ostensibly used some sort of propulsion system that harnessed the inherent power of gravity and thus utilized the characteristics of Element one
fifteen to work their technological wizardry. The government does not confirm the employment of anyone who has worked at Area fifty one, and, as some sources have pointed out, the gist of his claims have never been thoroughly disproved. Yet there's still the fundamental science contradicting his claims. Gates said, no, there is no connection between this discovery and the claims of Bob Lazar. Presently, all the created atoms of element one fifteen have decayed way too fast to be used
to fuel UFOs oh. We also spoke via email with Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell, who directed a documentary about Bob Lazar and who reached out to us after the article that this episode is based on was published. He said Lazar made a point to explain that there's no reason a version of element one fifteen couldn't be synthesized and observed at some point in the future. In fact, he predicted that it would be just likely not in a stabilized form because of the statistical and probability of landing
on a relevant isotope. The isotope discovered in two thousand three is not the isotope that would account for what Lazar has described having had access to while working at Area fifty one, and just like how gold has thirty seven to an isotopes and only one isotope is stable, one fifteen is suspected to have mostly rapid decay isotopes, So hopefully in the future we will land on a version with a longer half life, even if it just ends up being a few atoms of it, weather LaVar
is one fifteen winds up being an isotope of the one fifteen discovered in two thousand three. For now, we're left with some tangible but equally thrilling science. Muscovium is an amazing element. According to Gates, it's a sign that we're pushing the boundaries of what we know about the universe.
She said element one fifteen is special and that we can make it easier than some lighter elements like element one twelve or element one thirteen, and typically as we add more protons it becomes harder to make a new element. This trend is broken around element one fifteen. Due to this, we've been able to make over a hundred atoms of element one fifteen and begin to understand its nuclear and
chemical properties. But we also spoke via email with Virginia Tremble, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of California, Irvine. She said, as discovery space advances into heavier and heavier new glides, their properties provide stronger and stronger tests of
our basic physical understanding. They don't always decay in the expected patterns, and where more than a few atoms can be produced at once, they don't always have the chemical properties that you would expect from their position in the periodic table. Today's episode was written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang. For more in this and lots of other heavy topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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