Four new official element names added to periodic table of elements

The periodic table of elements - known to many as the fundamental reference for chemistry lessons, recently got four new names for some of its unnamed elements. Before that, the four elements - Ununtrium (UUT/113), Ununpentium (UUP/115), Ununseptium (UUS/117), and Ununoctium (UUO/118), all had temporary names.

Now, the wait is over. These four elements finally received their official Names from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) through its naming process.

Let's talk about the names of these four new elements, which completes the seventh row of the periodic table.

• Nihonium (Nh) - the element which was initially known as 113, the first element to be discovered by Japanese scientists. "Nihon" is the Japanese term for Japan.
• Moscovium (Mc) - The Element with atomic number 115, invented in 2003 by a joint team of Russia and American scientists at The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia. It is named in honor of Moscow, the capital of Russia.
• Tennessine (Tn) - The 117th element of the periodic table was named after Tennessee, a US state where the Oak Ridge National Laboratory can be found.
• Oganesson (Og) - Element 118 is the heaviest element in the periodic table; named in honor of famous nuclear physicist Dr. Yuri Oganessian, who led the team that discovered the element.

IUPAC President and Professor Natalia Tarasova said in a statement: "The names of the new elements reflect the realities of our present time."

These four elements cannot be found naturally. With having a lot of protons in the nucleus, these materials are considered superheavy & highly unstable. They exist only for a fraction of second in the laboratory. The most stable element among these four is Nihonium, which has a half-life of only 20 seconds in its most stable isotope.

Meanwhile, scientists are already working on searches for the elements in the eighth row of the periodic table, and they are also working to consolidate the identification of copernicium and heavier elements.