2023-10-25 17:08:49
Asteroid 33 Polyhymnia poses a problem… of mass. Its calculated density cannot be explained by any of the natural elements known to date and referenced in the famous periodic table. For scientists, there is no doubt: there are elements in our Solar System with extreme density that we have never observed or managed to synthesize.
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An emblem of classrooms, the periodic table presents all the known chemical elements. While many are found in nature, others have been synthesized by humans via nuclear reactions carried out at the heart of particle accelerators. Among natural elements, osmium is the densest stable element known to date. On Earth anyway. Because it might well be that there exist even denser elements in the Universe, unknown in the periodic table.
An asteroid too heavy for our periodic table
This hypothesis appeared following the observation of an asteroid named 33 Polyhymnia, present in the Main Asteroid Belt which is located between Mars and Jupiter. It was by calculating the mass density of this asteroid that researchers realized that it must be composed of elements still unknown to the battalion. It is impossible, in fact, to find the density of 33 Polyhymnia from the natural elements of the periodic table, even the densest such as osmium, which has 76 protons.
So certainly, there are many elements with a much higher atomic number. But these are not observed in nature. Produced experimentally, these elements which have more than 94 protons are much heavier but unstable and radioactive, often with a very short lifespan. It is therefore impossible for these to enter into the composition of an asteroid. Models suggest, however, that there may be another nuclear stability field for elements with around 164 protons.
These elements, which are currently only theoretical, would have densities between 36 and 68.4 g/cm3. For comparison, osmium has a density of 22.6 g/cm3. The density of 33 Polyhymnia might therefore be explained if the asteroid was composed in significant proportion of these superheavy metals with certainly very exotic properties. These results were published in the magazine The European Physical Journal Plus.
Human beings, despite their ability to defy nature, would therefore still be far from having explored the tremendous wealth that our Solar System contains!
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