New element named after Copernicus

The General Assembly of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) officially approved the names of three new elements, darmstadtium (Ds), roentgenium (Rg) and copernicium (Cn) – the last in honour of the man from Torun, central Poland, who discovered the heliocentric universe.

Copernicium, which has the atomic number 112, is a radioactive element which can only be produced in the laboratory. It was first created in 1996 at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany, by a team of scientists led by Sigurd Hofmann.

Last year the name for the new element was put forward "to honour an outstanding scientist, who changed our view of the world." (pg)