Just before the end of 2015, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced the official discovery of four new elements, filling up the period table's seventh row. Now, after much speculation, their proposed names have been unveiled. All of these names were proposed by the scientific teams responsible for the elements' discovery, and now IUPAC will seek public approval before making them official.
Three of the new elements (115, 117 and 118) were approved with credit to a team of Russian and American scientists from the Russian Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. They've proposed the name "moscovium" (mah-SKOH’-vee-um) for element 115, "tennessine" (TEH’-neh-seen) for element 117, and "oganesson" (OH’-gah-NEH’-sun) for element 118. They'd be given the symbols Mc, Ts, and Og, respectively.
Moscovium is, of course, a nod to Moscow made by the Russian scientists. Tennessine would mark the second time a state has been honored with the name of an element (the first being California). Unfortunately, Tennessee's new element can't have the Tn symbol. We have tungsten to thank for the confusion. Og would honor Russian scientist Yuri Oganessian, who led one of the teams credited with its discovery. He would be the second person ever given this honor while still living.
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Nature Magazine reports that when this last happened in 1993, it caused such an uproar that IUPAC considered banning the names of living scientists entirely. But they're unlikely to push back this time.
Share this articleShare“Although these choices may perhaps be viewed by some as slightly self-indulgent, the names are completely in accordance with IUPAC rules,” Jan Reedijk, president of IUPAC’s inorganic-chemistry division, said in a statement.
A fourth element the same team tried to claim (113) was ultimately credited to a team in Japan after IUPAC's assessment. They hope to name their find "nihonium" (nee-HOH’-nee-um) with the symbol Nh. Nihon is one way of two ways to say "Japan" in the country's native tongue. This is the first time an element discovered in East Asia has been confirmed by the IUPAC.
You won't ever encounter Nh, Og, Ts or Mc out in the natural world. These elements are all what we call superheavy (a reference to their increasing number of protons, which correspond to their number on the table), and they exist for but the smallest fraction of a moment when scientists smash nuclei into one another in the lab.
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