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Nuclear Physics

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Natural Occurence

In past decades, the finding of very long-lived superheavy elements in Nature has been claimed repeatedly. However, none of these searches were veryfied in independent experiments to date. In contrast, recent "verification attempts" were often significantly more sensitive than the experiments leading to the original claims, but were negative. Recent examples can be viewed at

http://prc.aps.org/abstract/PRC/v85/i2/e024315 or

http://prc.aps.org/abstract/PRC/v83/i1/e015801 .

On the other hand, there are long-standing theoretical predictions that superheavy elements might be an ingredient of the demise of stellar supernova explosions, there produced by means of the rapid neutron-capture process. See, for example,

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v231/n5298/abs/231103a0.html .

So in that sense "yes", possibly in outer space, but most likely live even the antipated most long-lived ones near the "Island of Stability" too short to be observed in the solar system, namely on Earth.

 

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