Einsteinium Facts
Einsteinium is a synthetic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Es and atomic number 99. It was first synthesized in 1952 by a team of scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory led by Albert Ghiorso.
Einsteinium is a member of the actinide series of elements, and is named after physicist Albert Einstein. It is a silvery-white metal that is highly reactive and can spontaneously ignite in air at room temperature.
Einsteinium has no stable isotopes, and its most stable isotope, einsteinium-252, has a half-life of only 471 days. Due to its short half-life and high radioactivity, einsteinium is extremely rare and has never been produced in quantities large enough to be seen with the naked eye.
Einsteinium has no known biological role, and its toxicity is not well understood due to its rarity and limited research on the element. However, its high radioactivity makes it potentially dangerous to handle without proper precautions.
Despite its rarity and limited applications, einsteinium has played an important role in nuclear physics research, particularly in the study of nuclear structure and the synthesis of heavy elements.