[Lewis Thomson (OP)]

Andy has been puzzled by this question & has sent it in for us to find answers to.

"Organesso was "recently discovered". What is an element? What use us it? What does Organesson look like? Where has it been hiding? As we've not discovered it until now how did we manage without it?"

What do you think? Leave you thoughts in the comments below...

[chiralSPO]

I suspect you are referring to the element, oganesson (Og), which has an. atomic number of 118.*

The element is very unstable (at least under conditions producible on Earth), and has only been observed in highly contrived situations, being synthesized by the nuclear reaction of californium and calcium.** Then it usually decays within a millisecond or two of being formed. If Og is produced naturally, it would probably be from events such as neutron star collisions,*** which fortunately occur only very far away from the earth, and even if the Og atoms were ejected at 99.9999% the speed of light, they couldn't make it here before decaying (even accounting for relativistic time dilation)!

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oganesson
** https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevC.74.044602
*** https://news.mit.edu/2021/neutron-star-collisions-goldmine-heavy-elements-1025

[evan_au]

The heavy elements in the periodic table lie down the bottom, in positions higher than Uranium (Element 92, with 92 electrons and 92 protons).
- Because these heavy elements decay in a time that is shorter than the age of the Earth, they are mostly man-made, in nuclear reactors or particle accelerators.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#Superheavy_elements

As Og (element 118, with 118 protons and 118 electrons) has a lifetime of 1ms or so, it is not of much practical use.
- But there is an ongoing competition between high-energy physics laboratories to produce the next heavier element, and measure its properties
- When their discovery is confirmed, the discovering lab gets naming rights (and bragging rights).