Shortest-lived and lightest magnesium isotope ever too unstable to even attract electrons
Magnesium-18 cation has a fleeting half-life of 3 billion trillionths of a second
An isotope of magnesium has been discovered that has a shorter half-life than the time it takes to attract electrons, representing a potential boundary to chemistry when it comes to the chart of nuclides.
More than 3000 different nuclides – isotopes of the elements – have been discovered to date, although only 252 are considered stable. A US and Chinese team has now created the lightest magnesium isotope known, with too few neutrons to exist for more than moments at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory in Michigan State University, US.