On this date in 1939 Francium, Element 87, was discovered. Ten things you might not know about Francium:
- Francium is a radioactive alkaline metal, with the Chemical symbol: Fr and the atomic number 87.
- Its boiling point is 677 °C, and its melting point 27 °C.
- Francium was discovered by Marguerite Perey in 1939, when she was studying the radioactive decay of actinium-227.
- Francium only exists exists as a decay product of other elements, so it is very rare. There is probably only 340 to 550 g (less than an ounce) of francium in the Earth’s crust at any time. Francium is the second rarest element in the Earth’s crust, next to astatine.
- In fact, it’s so rare that scientists have never managed to produce enough of it to even see what it looks like. The largest sample of francium ever made consisted of only about 300,000 atoms. It’s likely it would be a shiny metal which might be liquid at room temperature.
- Nor have they produced enough to see what would happen if you put it in Water, but it’s believed it would react even more violently than Sodium does.
- One reason it’s so rare is that it doesn’t hang around for very long. It has a half life of just 22 minutes.
- It’s called Francium after France, the country it was discovered in. The Curie Institute in Paris, to be exact.
- It was the last naturally occurring element to be discovered. All new elements since then have been created in a lab.
- Because it’s so unstable and rare, there are no commercial uses for Francium. Its only use is for scientific research.
Character birthday
Pamela Garrett: Mother of Sebastian Garrett. Appears in Killing Me Softly.
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