Neptunium essays

Neptunium essays What the heck is Neptunium? That is the question that first popped into my mind when I saw this name. I mean, Ive heard of neptune, its obviously a celestial body in the heavens that we petty earthlings refer to as a planet, or planeta for my spanish speaking friends. But neptunium, I mean, come on, cant you at least think of a more creative name. Despite the lack of creativity on the name, neptunium is actually quite a hoot. Its an interesting element and its quite obscure as well. And without further adue, here are some facts about this zany element. Np. Whats Np you ask, well its the chemical symbol. Its atomic number is 93. Atomic weight 237 correctly describes this thing. Neptunium has a melting point of 644 C. Its specific gravity is 20.25. Its boiling point is 3902 C. It has 15 isotopes. Wow, I reckon thats a lot of isotopes. The discover is McMillan and Abelson in the year 1940. As I recall, thats the jist of the obscure facts section of the supposed essay. Neptunium has some pretty boring info, but here it is anyway. Neptunium is a ductile, silvery radioactive metal. It is a member of the actinide series in group IIIb of the periodic table. Neptunium has three distinct forms. Neptunium forms numerous chemical compounds. The element was discovered in 1940 by Edwin M. McMillan and Philip H. Abelson, who produced neptunium-239 (with a half-life of 2.3 days if I correctly recall) by bombarding uranium with neutrons from a cyclotron at the Univ. of California at Berkeley. Neptunium, the first transuranium element (thats a big word), was named for the planet Neptune, which is beyond Uranus in the solar system. Neptunium is found in very small quantities in nature in association with uranium ores. There are 20 known isotopes of neptunium. Neptunium-237, the most stable, has a half-life of 2.14 million years and is used in neutron-detection equipment. And thats all fo ...