Atomic Number: 118

Atomic Weight: 294

Melting Point: Unknown

Boiling Point: Unknown

Density: Unknown

Phase at Room Temperature: Expected to be a Gas

Element Classification: Non-metal

Period Number: 7

Group Number: 18

Group Name: Noble Gas

Special Notes: Radioactive and Artificially Produced

What's in a name? Named after the scientist Yuri Oganessian.

Say what? Oganesson is pronounced as oh-gan-ess-on.

History and Uses:

On October 16, 2006, scientists working at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, along with scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, announced the creation of oganesson. They produced oganesson by bombarding atoms of californium-249 with ions of calcium-48. This produced oganesson-294, an isotope with a half-life of about 0.89 milliseconds (0.00089 seconds), and three free neutrons. The californium target was irradiated with a total of 1.6*1019 calcium ions over the course of 1080 hours, resulting in the production of three atoms of oganesson.

Oganesson's most stable isotope, oganesson-294, has a half-life of about 0.89 milliseconds. It decays into livermorium-290 through alpha decay.

Since only a few atoms of oganesson have ever been produced, it currently has no uses outside of basic scientific research.