New Uranium Isotope Discovered

• Physicists in Japan discovered a previously unknown isotope of uranium, with atomic number 92 and mass number 241, i.e Uranium-241 and its half-life, according to theoretical calculations, could be 40 minutes.

About Uranium

• Uranium is a naturally occurring chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92.
• It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table.
• Uranium has several isotopes, which are atoms that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons like U-235 and U-238.
• It is a heavy metal that is radioactive and found in small quantities in rocks and soils worldwide.

Static Information

• Atomic number = No. of Protons = No. of Electrons
• of Neutrons = Atomic mass– Atomic No.

Uranium-241 discovery

• The researchers accelerated uranium-238 nuclei into plutonium-198 nuclei at the KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS).
• In a process called multinucleon transfer, the two isotopes exchanged protons and neutrons.
• The resulting nuclear fragments contained different isotopes.
• This is how the researchers identified uranium-241 and measured the mass of its nucleus by using time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

Magic numbers

• In nuclear physics, a magic number is a number of nucleons (either protons or neutrons, separately) such that they are arranged into complete shells within the atomic nucleus.
• As a result, atomic nuclei with a ‘magic’ number of protons or neutrons are much more stable than other nuclei.
• The heaviest known ‘magic’ nucleus is lead (82 protons).