[HN Gopher] Researcher discovers new isotope of astatine
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       Researcher discovers new isotope of astatine
        
       Author : wglb
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2023-06-27 22:59 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | gnufx wrote:
       | Shout out to the under-appreciated Arthur James who designed, as
       | far as I know, the first recoil separator, for the Daresbury
       | Nuclear Structure Facility.
        
       | Kaibeezy wrote:
       | Don't know much about astatine except it's the rarest naturally
       | occurring element and Tom Lehrer sang about it.
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/AcS3NOQnsQM
        
       | WJW wrote:
       | Congrats to newly forged MSc Kokkonen!
        
       | chasil wrote:
       | The article does not mention that there are no stable isotopes of
       | astatine, including the new discovery.
       | 
       | "Astatine is a fast-decaying, and therefore rare element. It has
       | been estimated that in the Earth's crust there is no more than
       | one tablespoon of astatine."
       | 
       | From the wiki:
       | 
       | "All of astatine's isotopes are short-lived; the most stable is
       | astatine-210, with a half-life of 8.1 hours."
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astatine
        
         | bonzini wrote:
         | The "What if" book by Randall Munroe describes astatine in very
         | simple words: "that thing just does not want to exist".
        
         | philipkglass wrote:
         | The primary source is
         | https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevC.107.0...
         | 
         | From the abstract:
         | 
         |  _An a-particle energy of 7750(20) keV and a half-life of 1.0
         | (+1.4,-0.4) ms were measured [for the new isotope
         | astatine-190]._
         | 
         | Now that's an unstable isotope! Makes astatine-210 look like
         | Methuselah. Yet this is far from the fastest-decaying isotope
         | known. Take a look at the exotic isotopes of helium:
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_helium#Heavier_hel...
         | 
         |  _The shortest-lived isotope is helium-10 with a half-life of
         | 260(40) yoctoseconds._
         | 
         | If you don't have your exotic SI orders-of-magnitude prefixes
         | memorized, you'll need a trip to this table to understand how
         | incredibly short a yoctosecond is:
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(time)#Les...
        
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       (page generated 2023-06-29 23:01 UTC)