Oganesson (Og)
Oganesson: The Heaviest Synthetic Element
Oganesson is a man-made, highly radioactive element and the heaviest element on the periodic table (atomic number 118). Only a handful of atoms have ever been created, and they disappear in less than a millisecond. It is named after Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian, one of the world’s leading researchers in superheavy elements.
A Man-Made Element 🧪
Oganesson doesn’t exist in nature—it can only be made in a laboratory using a heavy ion accelerator. The first successful synthesis involved bombarding californium-249 with calcium-48 nuclei. When the two fused, they briefly formed an atom of oganesson before it decayed.
Biological Role & Uses 🌱
Because oganesson is so unstable and rare, it has no practical uses. Its atoms vanish in a fraction of a millisecond, so it exists only as a tool for scientists studying:
the chemistry of superheavy elements the limits of the periodic table how atomic structure changes at extreme sizes
Oganesson has no biological role and would be toxic due to its strong radioactivity.
History of Discovery 📜
The discovery of oganesson was a global collaboration:
2002: Scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Russia) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA) worked together to synthesize the element for the first time.
2015: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) officially confirmed the discovery.
2016: The element was named oganesson, in honor of Yuri Oganessian.