Who discovered polonium and astatine?

 

                       Polonium was discovered by Marie Curie, a Polish physicist, in 1898. This element is a strongly radioactive metal. Polonium takes its name from Poland, Marie Curie’s motherland. Poland then was not an independent country and Curie hoped that naming the element after Poland would make

 her country’s plight known to the world!

                       Marie Curie isolated polonium from uranium ores and pitchblende, a uranium-rich mineral, in which it exists in tiny amounts. Polonium is used in nuclear reactors. It is represented as Po, and its atomic number is 84.

 

 

                        The existence of astatine had been predicted in the 1800s. Mendeleev in his periodic table had left an empty space after iodine, signifying a yet-to-be-found element. Astatine, however, was discovered much later in 1940 by Dale Corson, Kenneth McKenzie and Emilio Segre at the University of California, Berkeley.

                       Astatine is the rarest element on Earth; approximately 25 grams occur naturally on the planet at any given time.

                      Astatine has an important use in nuclear medicine, but it decays so quickly that it must be used within a matter of hours following production.

                     The atomic symbol of astatine is At, and its atomic number is 85.

Pictures credit: google