Can We Create New Elements Beyond the Periodic Table?

Can We Create New Elements Beyond the Periodic Table?

From PBS Space Time by PBS

May 5, 2026 · 24 min

About this episode

The episode explores the potential for creating new elements beyond the current periodic table and the cosmic phenomena that may aid in this discovery.

Go to https://www.buyraycon.com/spacetime for 20-40% off your order, plus free shipping! Brought to you by Raycon. Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Scientists have been slowly extending the periodic table one element at a time, pushing to higher and higher masses, and have discovered some incredibly useful materials along the way. But the elements at the current end of the table are so unstable that they decay almost as soon as they’re created in our particle accelerators. Have we reached the end of the line of discoverable elements? There are new rows of the periodic table to unlock, and more stable versions of known heavy elements to synthesize—and while our accelerators are coming up short, astronomers have found a strange cosmic phenomenon that may populate the periodic table beyond our wildest dreams. Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements! https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/spacetime Search the Entire Space Time Library Here: https://search.pbsspacetime.com/ Hosted by Matt O'Dowd Written by Matt…

People in this episode

Host: Matt O'Dowd

Topics covered

  • periodic table
  • element synthesis
  • particle accelerators
  • cosmic phenomena
  • unstable elements
  • heavy elements

Keywords

  • new elements
  • periodic table
  • synthesis
  • unstable elements
  • particle physics
  • cosmic phenomena

Sponsors

Raycon

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: PBS

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