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Uranium-235 makes up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a fission chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that is a primordial nuclide or found in significant quantity in nature. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 703.8 million years.
The darker more stable isotope region departs from the line of protons (Z) = neutrons (N), as the element number Z becomes larger. This is a list of chemical elements by the stability of their isotopes. Of the first 82 elements in the periodic table, 80 have isotopes considered to be stable. [1] Overall, there are 251 known stable isotopes in ...
This is a list of radioactive nuclides (sometimes also called isotopes), ordered by half-life from shortest to longest, in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Current methods make it difficult to measure half-lives between approximately 10 −19 and 10 −10 seconds.
This element is prevented from having a stable isotope with equal numbers of neutrons and protons (beryllium-8, with 4 of each) by its instability toward alpha decay, which is favored due to the extremely tight binding of helium-4 nuclei. It is prevented from having a stable isotope with 4 protons and 6 neutrons by the very large mismatch in ...
In total, 28 isotopes of uranium have been identified, ranging in mass number from 214 [119] to 242, with the exception of 220. [7] [120] Among the uranium isotopes not found in natural samples or nuclear fuel, the longest-lived is 230 U, an alpha emitter with a half-life of 20.23 days. [7]
The second-lightest exclusively radioactive element, promethium, has atomic number 61. [32] Atomic nuclei with an odd number of protons are less stable than those with even numbers, even when the total number of nucleons (protons + neutrons) is even, [57] and odd numbered elements have fewer stable isotopes.
A nuclide is a species of an atom with a specific number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus, for example, carbon-13 with 6 protons and 7 neutrons. The nuclide concept (referring to individual nuclear species) emphasizes nuclear properties over chemical properties, whereas the isotope concept (grouping all atoms of each element) emphasizes chemical over nuclear.
Thus, for example, there are three main isotopes of carbon. All carbon atoms have 6 protons, but they can have either 6, 7, or 8 neutrons. Since the mass numbers of these are 12, 13 and 14 respectively, said three isotopes are known as carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14 (12 C, 13 C, and 14 C).