Og

Oganesson

In 2002, scientists at Russia’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and America’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory created the first atoms of a novel element through an ambitious experiment. They bombarded a californium target with calcium ions for 2,300 hours – nearly four months – to produce just two atoms of element 118. These atoms existed for only milliseconds before decaying.

In 2016, the element was named after Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian, marking the first time an element was named for a living scientist. This honor recognized his pioneering work in discovering super-heavy elements.