Copernicium is a synthetic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cn and atomic number 112. The element was previously known by the IUPAC systematic element name ununbium, with the symbol Uub. Read more
A new element has been named after Polands most famous astronomer and discoverer of the heliocentric universe. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has officially accepted the name Copernicum (Cn) for a new element in the Medeleevs table. The element 112 was discovered in 1996 by an international team of scientists from Germany, Finland, Russia and Slovakia supervised by Professor Sigurd Hofmann from the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI). Read more
Ununbium is a synthetic radioactive chemical element with the temporary symbol Uub and atomic number 112. "Ununbium" is a IUPAC systematic element name, used until the element receives an accepted name. Read more Ed ~ The newly discovered element 112 has been named "Copernicum". Element 112 was discovered on 9th February 1996 at the GSI in Darmstadt, Germany. It has properties similar to Mercury (and should appear below mercury in the periodic table).
Discovered 13 years ago, and officially added to the periodic table just weeks ago, element 112 finally has a name. It will be called "copernicium", with the symbol Cp, in honour of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
The newest - and heaviest - element on the periodic table could get tagged with the name "copernicium" in honour of the late astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
"We would like to honour an outstanding scientist, who changed our view of the world" - Sigurd Hofmann, head of the discovery team at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany.
Copernicus, who lived from 1473 to 1543, discovered that the Earth orbits the sun, thus paving the way for our modern view of the world. Thirteen years ago, GSI scientists discovered element 112 or "Cp" after bombarding zinc ions (charged zinc atoms) onto a lead target in the facility's particle accelerator.
The ubiquitous periodic table will soon have a new addition - the "super-heavy" element 112. More than a decade after experiments first produced a single atom of the element, a team of German scientists has been credited with its discovery. The team, led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Centre for Heavy Ion Research, must propose a name for their find, before it can be formally added to the table.
Researchers are normally hard-pressed to catch a fleeting glimpse of the so-called superheavy elements at the far edge of the periodic table. Now a team has gone a step further and studied the chemistry of short-lived element 112, which seems to bond with other elements in the same way as its mundane relatives zinc and mercury.
"In principle, we are proving whether the good old basic systematics of chemistrythe periodic tableis a valid ordering principle also for transactinides," or superheavy elements, says chemist and team leader Robert Eichler of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland, and the University of Bern.