Curium (Cm)
"The Power Couple, a hero named for the pioneers of radioactivity, who powers missions on other worlds."
A memorable persona to anchor Cm in your mind.
13.51
Grams per cm³
1345
Celsius (°C)
245
Radius (pm)
Daily Life Link
Curium is found in the APXS instrument on the Mars rovers used to analyze rocks.
Discovery & History
Year Discovered
1944
Discovered By
Glenn Seaborg and colleagues
Origin of Name
"Curium is named in honour of Pierre and Marie Curie."
Technical Properties
Atomic Mass
[247] u
Standard State
solid
Boiling Point
N/A
Electron Configuration
[Rn] 5f76d17s2
1st Ionization Energy
6.02 eV
Electron Affinity
N/A
Oxidation States
"Curium is a hard, dense, silvery, radioactive metal."
Did You Know?
It is named in honor of Marie and Pierre Curie, the famous pioneers of radioactivity research.
It is so radioactive that a small sample will glow with a purple light in the dark.
Curium is also intensely hot due to the energy released by its own radioactive decay.
The alpha particles emitted by curium-244 were used in the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometers on the Mars rovers Sojourner, Spirit, and Opportunity to analyze the composition of Martian rocks and soil.