Researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research, an accelerator laboratory located in Germany, claim they have created and analyzed several atoms of element 117, meaning it could soon be given a name and a place on the periodic table of elements.
The element has been given the temporarily name of "ununseptium" for the time being, according to LiveScience.com.
Element 117 was previously one of the missing items on the periodic table of elements. These super-heavy elements are not found naturally on Earth, and are only created synthetically in a lab.
The element is expected to be placed in the zone past element 104. All elements found above 104 have very short lives.
Uranium, which has 92 protons, is the heaviest element commonly found in nature. Scientists are able to artificially create heavier elements however, just by adding protons into an atomic nucleus through nuclear fusion reactions.
Christoph Düllmann, a professor at the Institute for Nuclear Chemistry at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz said researchers have spent many years creating heavier elements in an attempt to discover just how big large atoms can become, according to LiveScience.com.
"There are predictions that super-heavy elements should exist which are very long-lived," Dllmann said. "It is interesting to find out if half-lives become long again for very heavy elements, especially if very neutron-rich species are made."
Element 117 was first reported in 2010 by a team of Russian and American scientists working together at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia.
Since then, researchers have performed subsequent tests to confirm the existence of the elusive new element.
Now it's up to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to make the confirmation, according to Daily Digest News.
Once a decision is made that no further testing is needed, the IUPAC will then have to decide what institutions will be allowed to name element 117.
Düllmann, and his colleagues, believe that their findings are a step in the right direction.
"The successful experiments on element 117 are an important step on the path to the production and detection of elements situated on the 'island of stability' of super-heavy elements," Horst Stöcker, scientific director at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research, said in a statement, according to LiveScience.com.
Research on the element was published today (May 1) in the journal Physical Review Letters.
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