Element 118 · Noble Gas
Oganesson
Oganesson — element 118, the heaviest element ever synthesised. A few atoms, a few milliseconds.
Element Facts
SYMBOL
Og
ATOMIC NO.
118
ATOMIC WEIGHT
294
CATEGORY
Noble Gas
PERIOD
Period 7
GROUP
Group 18
Origins
Oganesson was first synthesised in 2002 at JINR Dubna by Yuri Oganessian and colleagues, by bombarding californium-249 with calcium-48 ions. Confirmed and named in 2016 after Yuri Oganessian himself — only the second element ever named after a living person (after seaborgium). Oganessian has supervised the discovery of six superheavy elements at JINR. Oganesson is currently the heaviest known element and occupies the final position in period 7 of the periodic table.
Modern Applications
Oganesson has no practical applications whatsoever. Fewer than 5 atoms have ever been confirmed produced. It occupies the position in the periodic table analogous to noble gases (group 18) but is predicted by relativistic quantum mechanics to be neither a gas nor chemically inert — potentially a solid under normal conditions. This makes it theoretically fascinating but practically inaccessible.
At the Yard
Why QuickStop Metals doesn’t buy Oganesson:
Oganesson’s most stable known isotope has a half-life of approximately 0.89 milliseconds — less than one thousandth of a second. It is the heaviest, most unstable element ever produced. No commercial application or scrap trade is conceivable under any circumstances.
Market Value
No commercial market. The heaviest known element exists for less than one millisecond. Its existence has been confirmed by fewer than five individual atomic decay events. It represents the current boundary of known matter.