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Neutron stardust and the elements of Earth

Nature Chemistry volume 11, pages 4–10 (2019)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 10 January 2019

This article has been updated

At its inception, the periodic table sorted elements by weight, so it may be surprising that the heaviest natural element on Earth remains controversial, or at best, nebulous. In the strange, perhaps-unfinished search for this weightiest nucleus, the only definitive conclusion is that it lies somewhere beyond uranium.

If you ask “what is the heaviest chemical element?” however, you may get a variety of answers along with a heap of uncertainty. Until the 1940s, the heaviest known element was uranium, and generations of students were taught this in general chemistry classes. But in science, there’s always someone ready to challenge conventional wisdom — so there must be something heavier than uranium, right? Whether or not it is truly possible to know the identity of the heaviest chemical element remains debatable as the periodic table expands. For our discussions here, by ‘heaviest element’ we mean the chemical element with the highest atomic number — the one with the most protons in its nucleus. While an isotope of a lighter element might have a higher absolute mass than a heavier known element, here we are interested in the atomic number since that accounts for (almost2) all of each element’s chemical uniqueness.

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Fig. 1: Nuclear reactions that produce, or have the potential to produce, transuranium elements on Earth
Fig. 2: The fermium wall.

Change history

  • 10 January 2019

    In the version of this Comment originally published, the image was incorrectly credited to Chelsea Anne Bar; it should have been to Brett F. Thornton. This has now been corrected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Sciences and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Brett F. Thornton

  2. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA

    Shawn C. Burdette

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  1. Brett F. Thornton
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Correspondence to Brett F. Thornton or Shawn C. Burdette.

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Thornton, B.F., Burdette, S.C. Neutron stardust and the elements of Earth. Nature Chem 11, 4–10 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-018-0190-9

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