Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. Element one fifteen is
Speaker 1: an enigma of sorts. It was only added to the
Speaker 1: periodic table in yet for decades it has attracted attention
Speaker 1: because of a supposed connection to extraterrestrial technology and alien
Speaker 1: life forms. Intrigued, Before we answer whether there is a connection,
Speaker 1: let's find out what element one fifteen really is. First off,
Speaker 1: as with all elements on the periodic table, the elements
Speaker 1: number corresponds to the number of protons and the nucleus
Speaker 1: of the elements atom always spoke by email with Jacqueline Gates,
Speaker 1: a scientist with the Heavy Elements Group in the Nuclear
Speaker 1: Science Division for Berkeley Lab in California. She explained Element
Speaker 1: one fifteen, or moscovium, is a man made super heavy
Speaker 1: element that has a hundred and fifteen protons in its nucleus.
Speaker 1: That is twenty three more protons and the heaviest element
Speaker 1: you can find in large quantities on Earth Uranium. Element
Speaker 1: one fifteen is an extremely rare element that's made one
Speaker 1: atom at a time in particle accelerators. It exists for
Speaker 1: just a fraction of a second before it decays into
Speaker 1: another element. Gates said it's special because it's near a
Speaker 1: predicted island of stability where some super heavy nuclei might
Speaker 1: have much longer lifetimes. Instead of living for less than
Speaker 1: a second, they could exist for minutes, days, or even years.
Speaker 1: That is long enough that we might be able to
Speaker 1: use them for practical applications. Element one fifteen was discovered
Speaker 1: in two thousand three in Russia at the Flora of
Speaker 1: Laboratory for nuclear reactions. In the past fifty years, the
Speaker 1: lab has discovered nine new elements, including the sixth most recent.
Speaker 1: One fifteen was eventually named moscovium because laboratory is in Moscow.
Speaker 1: To make this element, the scientists accelerated ions of calcium
Speaker 1: forty eight to around ten per of the speed of
Speaker 1: light and then bombarded American two forty three with them.
Speaker 1: Through this bombardment, they were able to successfully fuse the
Speaker 1: nuclei of these atoms, producing four atoms of moscovium. Gates explained,
Speaker 1: to create a super heavy element, you need the complete
Speaker 1: fusion of two lighter elements. Of The new element that
Speaker 1: they made had a hundred and fifteen protons twenty from
Speaker 1: the calcium forty eight and ninety five from the americum
Speaker 1: to forty three. This new element was then separated from
Speaker 1: all the other reaction products using a gas filled recoil
Speaker 1: separator and then implanted into a detector where scientists were
Speaker 1: able to watch element one fifteen decay into element one thirteen.
Speaker 1: It took years for researchers to work out some of
Speaker 1: the details about moscovia. It wasn't until twenty eighteen the
Speaker 1: Berkeley Lab scientists figured out that the element's mass or
Speaker 1: atomic weight, that is, the total number of protons and
Speaker 1: neutrons in the atom, was two eighty eight. To nab
Speaker 1: this vital number, they repeated the process that the first
Speaker 1: discoverers used to pin down the element. In doing so,
Speaker 1: they managed to produce roughly one atom of muscovium per day,
Speaker 1: and that atom was captured by an instrument called FIONA,
Speaker 1: an acronym meaning for the identification of nu glide a,
Speaker 1: which to the untrained eye looks like a small metal
Speaker 1: bank vault. So far, muscovium doesn't have a practical use
Speaker 1: outside of scientific study, But what about that potential alien connection.
Speaker 1: Element one fifteen was only discovered in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: but it may sound familiar because the name has been
Speaker 1: around for decades in connection with UFOs, aliens and other
Speaker 1: related phenomena. We're referring to the long lived story of
Speaker 1: Bob Scott Lazar, who went public with what he said
Speaker 1: was top secret information about Element one fifteen. Lazar claimed
Speaker 1: to be a former employee at Area fifty one, the
Speaker 1: infamous and highly classified area of the Nevada Test and
Speaker 1: Training Range operated by the United States Air Force, where
Speaker 1: he said his job was to reverse engineer crashed alien
Speaker 1: flying saucers. He said that he had personally worked with
Speaker 1: Element one fifteen, which was used to pilot alien spacecraft.
Speaker 1: Lazar said it was quote impossible to synthesize an element
Speaker 1: that heavy here on Earth. The substance has to come
Speaker 1: from a place where super heavy elements could have been
Speaker 1: produced naturally. Lazar claimed that he had seen evidence of
Speaker 1: anti gravity propulsion technologies and nine alien spacecraft stored in
Speaker 1: the hangar at Area fifty one. Those spaceships ostensibly used
Speaker 1: some sort of propulsion system that harnessed the inherent power
Speaker 1: of gravity and thus utilized the characteristics of Element one
Speaker 1: fifteen to work their technological wizardry. The government does not
Speaker 1: confirm the employment of anyone who has worked at Area
Speaker 1: fifty one, and, as some sources have pointed out, the
Speaker 1: gist of his claims have never been thoroughly disproved. Yet
Speaker 1: there's still the fundamental science contradicting his claims. Gates said, no,
Speaker 1: there is no connection between this discovery and the claims
Speaker 1: of Bob Lazar. Presently, all the created atoms of element
Speaker 1: one fifteen have decayed way too fast to be used
Speaker 1: to fuel UFOs oh. We also spoke via email with
Speaker 1: Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell, who directed a documentary about Bob
Speaker 1: Lazar and who reached out to us after the article
Speaker 1: that this episode is based on was published. He said
Speaker 1: Lazar made a point to explain that there's no reason
Speaker 1: a version of element one fifteen couldn't be synthesized and
Speaker 1: observed at some point in the future. In fact, he
Speaker 1: predicted that it would be just likely not in a
Speaker 1: stabilized form because of the statistical and probability of landing
Speaker 1: on a relevant isotope. The isotope discovered in two thousand
Speaker 1: three is not the isotope that would account for what
Speaker 1: Lazar has described having had access to while working at
Speaker 1: Area fifty one, and just like how gold has thirty
Speaker 1: seven to an isotopes and only one isotope is stable,
Speaker 1: one fifteen is suspected to have mostly rapid decay isotopes,
Speaker 1: So hopefully in the future we will land on a
Speaker 1: version with a longer half life, even if it just
Speaker 1: ends up being a few atoms of it, weather LaVar
Speaker 1: is one fifteen winds up being an isotope of the
Speaker 1: one fifteen discovered in two thousand three. For now, we're
Speaker 1: left with some tangible but equally thrilling science. Muscovium is
Speaker 1: an amazing element. According to Gates, it's a sign that
Speaker 1: we're pushing the boundaries of what we know about the universe.
Speaker 1: She said element one fifteen is special and that we
Speaker 1: can make it easier than some lighter elements like element
Speaker 1: one twelve or element one thirteen, and typically as we
Speaker 1: add more protons it becomes harder to make a new element.
Speaker 1: This trend is broken around element one fifteen. Due to this,
Speaker 1: we've been able to make over a hundred atoms of
Speaker 1: element one fifteen and begin to understand its nuclear and
Speaker 1: chemical properties. But we also spoke via email with Virginia Tremble,
Speaker 1: a physics and astronomy professor at the University of California, Irvine.
Speaker 1: She said, as discovery space advances into heavier and heavier
Speaker 1: new glides, their properties provide stronger and stronger tests of
Speaker 1: our basic physical understanding. They don't always decay in the
Speaker 1: expected patterns, and where more than a few atoms can
Speaker 1: be produced at once, they don't always have the chemical
Speaker 1: properties that you would expect from their position in the
Speaker 1: periodic table. Today's episode was written by Nathan Chandler and
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. For more in this and lots
Speaker 1: of other heavy topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
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