Oganesson (Og) is an extremely rare, synthetic superheavy element with atomic number 118, making it the heaviest element on the periodic table. First synthesized in 2002 by a joint Russian-American team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, this element was named after Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian in 2016. As a member of the noble gases group, oganesson is highly radioactive and unstable, with its most stable isotope, oganesson-294, having a half-life of less than a millisecond. Due to its extreme instability and the fact that only a few atoms have ever been produced, scientists have limited experimental data about its properties, relying instead on theoretical predictions that suggest it may behave quite differently from other noble gases due to strong relativistic effects.

Find out about the noble gasses as a group here [Helium (He), Neon (Ne), Argon (Ar), Krypton (Kr), Xenon (Xe), Radon (Rn), Oganesson (Og)].

20 Fun Facts About Oganesson

Beyond the basics above, what else should we know about Oganesson? Check out the 20 fun facts below!

1. Oganesson is the only element named after a living person at the time of its naming – Yuri Oganessian was 83 years old when the element was officially named in his honor in 2016.
2. It took 16 years from discovery to official naming – the longest gap for any element in modern history, partly due to disputes over priority and verification requirements.
3. Creating a single atom of oganesson requires bombarding californium-249 with calcium-48 ions for weeks, consuming millions of dollars worth of materials and electricity.
4. Scientists estimate that fewer than 10 atoms of oganesson have ever existed on Earth at any given moment since the element’s discovery.
5. Unlike other noble gases that are colorless, theoretical models suggest oganesson might actually be a metallic-looking solid at room temperature due to relativistic effects.
6. The element is so unstable that it decays before scientists can perform any chemical experiments on it – all properties are based on computer simulations.
7. Oganesson’s electron shell structure is so distorted by relativistic effects that it might not behave like a noble gas at all, potentially forming compounds easily.
8. The calcium-48 projectile used to create oganesson is incredibly rare and expensive – Russia owns most of the world’s supply from a unique natural deposit.
9. Each atom of oganesson costs an estimated $1 billion to produce when accounting for all facility, material, and operational expenses.
10. Oganesson completes the seventh row of the periodic table, making it a milestone element that represents the current limit of human element synthesis.
11. The element’s discovery involved shooting 10^19 (10 quintillion) calcium ions at the target to produce just three or four atoms of oganesson.
12. Computer simulations suggest oganesson atoms might be shaped more like a smeared-out cloud rather than having distinct electron shells.
13. If you could somehow gather a visible amount of oganesson, it would glow intensely from its own radioactive decay and vaporize almost instantly.
14. The discovery team included scientists from Russia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
15. Oganesson-294 decays through alpha emission in about 0.7 milliseconds, producing livermorium-290 and releasing tremendous energy.
16. The element sits directly below radon on the periodic table but might be more chemically similar to metalloids than to its noble gas relatives.
17. Scientists predict that oganesson might have a boiling point around 80°C, making it the only noble gas that would be solid at room temperature.
18. The discovery of oganesson required developing new detection techniques that could identify decay chains lasting just milliseconds.
19. Element 118 was actually first claimed to be discovered in 1999 at Berkeley Lab, but those results were later found to be fabricated, leading to a major scientific scandal.
20. Theoretical calculations suggest that if oganesson could form compounds, “oganesson fluoride” (OgF4) might be possible – making it the first reactive noble gas compound with a higher oxidation state than +2.

Thanks for reading!