The current edge of the table
The periodic table as confirmed by IUPAC ends at element 118, oganesson (Og), synthesised at JINR in Dubna in 2002 and officially named in 2016. With a half-life measured in milliseconds, oganesson is a noble gas only by position — its properties remain almost entirely theoretical.
Element 119 would begin period 8 and group 1, sitting below francium (87). It would be the heaviest alkali metal ever observed.
How superheavy elements are made
Superheavy elements cannot be found in nature — their nuclei are too unstable to persist. They are created by nuclear fusion in particle accelerators: a beam of accelerated nuclei is fired at a heavy target, and physicists watch for the rare collision that produces a fused nucleus.
For element 119, the most-studied reaction is:
⁵⁰Ti + ²⁴⁹Cf → ²⁹⁹Uue*
Titanium-50 ions are accelerated to ~10% of the speed of light and directed at californium-249 foils. The product nucleus (if it forms) survives for perhaps a millisecond before decaying. Detectors identify the decay chain — a fingerprint that confirms which element was briefly created.
The challenge is probability. A useful reaction rate might mean one fusion event per week of continuous beam time. Read our atomic structure guide for background on how proton and neutron counts define elements.
Relativistic chemistry
At atomic numbers above ~80, electrons in the inner shells must move fast enough that their mass increases measurably — a relativistic effect. This contracts the inner orbitals and changes how valence electrons behave.
Gold's yellow colour, mercury's liquid state at room temperature, and lead's low reactivity compared to tin are all attributable to these effects. Element 119, if synthesised, would sit in a regime where relativistic effects dominate, and its chemistry might differ substantially from sodium or potassium despite sharing their group.
State of the race
RIKEN (Japan) completed the naming of nihonium (element 113) in 2016 after a decade-long campaign. They have been running element 119 beam time since 2018 using their upgraded RILAC accelerator. GSI in Germany — home of six element discoveries — began their campaign for element 119 in 2021 with the new SHE-Factory facility. Both groups have reported no confirmed synthesis as of late 2026; the search continues.
IUPAC confirmation requires at least three independently detected decay events, reproducible by a second laboratory. Once detected, a naming process — which any nation can propose — takes several years.