You may recall back in April of 2010 a team of Russian and American scientists discovered the existence of element 117, which has the placeholder name ununseptium. Yet, the element didn’t get a shiny new name and place on the periodic table. This is because the man-made elements require verification before they become official. Today element 117 earned its stripes, when German and American researchers announced synthesis of a few atoms of the element.
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee created the berkelium used as the starting material for the synthesis. A team of researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, bombarded the berkelium target to obtain superheavy 117 atoms.