Ununpentium Ununpentium Systematic element name Category="Chemical elements"Category="Poor metals"

115 Ununquadium ← ununpentium → Ununhexium
Bi
↑
Uup
↓
(Uhp)
[image]
periodic table
General
Name, Symbol, Number ununpentium, Uup, 115
Chemical series presumably poor metals
Group, Period, Block 15, 7, p
Appearance unknown, probably silvery
white or metallic gray
Atomic mass (288) g/mol
Electron configuration perhaps [Rn] 5f¹⁴ 6d¹⁰ 7s² 7p³
(guess based on Bismuth)
Electrons per shell 2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 18, 5
Phase presumably a Solid
CAS registry number 54085-64-2
References

Ununpentium (eka-bismuth) is the temporary name of an unconfirmed synthetic superheavy element in the Periodic table that has the temporary symbol Uup and has the Atomic number 115. It is made by a fusion of Calcium and Americium. It has also been known as eka-bismuth.

History

On February 1, 2004, the synthesis of ununpentium and Ununtrium were reported in Physical Review C by a team composed of Russian scientists at Dubna University's Joint Institute for Nuclear Research , and American scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Their discovery of the element still awaits confirmation.

The team reported that they bombarded Americium (element 95) with Calcium (element 20) to produce four atoms of ununpentium (element 115). These atoms, they report, decayed to Ununtrium (element 113) in a fraction of a second. The ununtrium produced then existed for 1.2 seconds before decaying into natural elements.

Ununpentium is a temporary IUPAC Systematic element name.

Ununpentium in popular culture

Ununpentium was theorized to be inside the Island of stability. This probably explains why it was mentioned regularly in popular culture before it was actually created:

In the world of UFO conspiracy theory culture during the 1980s and 1990s, Bob Lazar asserted that ununpentium functioned as "Fuel" for UFOs, being "stepped up" to Ununhexium under "particulate bombardment," and that the ununhexium's decay products would include Antimatter. These ideas are considered to be Pseudoscience by current physics.
As a reference to this kind of UFO conspiracy theory, in the X-COM game series there is an element called elerium-115 or just elerium (the name "elerium-115" being an error as in this form the number refers to the atomic mass instead of the atomic number, meaning that elerium would have no neutrons, which is not possible).
A fictional stable isotope of ununpentium occurs in the game Dark Reign.
A fictional stable isotope of "Element 115" powered the time machine in the TV Show Seven Days.

External links

WebElements.com's entry for Uup.
Apsidium - Ununpentium
Discovery of Elements 113 and 115
Discovery of New Superheavy Elements 113 and 115
Superheavy elements