Friday 25 March 2016

What's the likelihood of the existence of unknown elements in the Solar System?

Another way to look at this question is to consider how elements are produced. The elements with larger atomic numbers (i.e.: 26 (iron) or so) on the periodic table are primarily produced during supernovae explosions. Based on a lot of findings in stellar physics and nuclear physics in the past half century, it's unlikely that a transfermionic element (an element with 92 or more protons) can be produced in that process. Further, these elements tend to decay with half lives measured in hours or minutes (or less), so even if they were produced in a supernova, they are long since gone.



As @Jonathan pointed out, there is some potential for such elements due to the so-called island of stability, but they are still likely to be highly unstable, with very short decay times.

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