Oganesson is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Og and atomic number 118. It was first synthesized in 2002 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, near Moscow, Russia, by a joint team of Russian and American scientists. In December 2015, it was recognized as one of four new elements by the Joint Working Party of the international scientific bodies IUPAC and IUPAP. It was formally named on 28 November 2016. The name honors the nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian, who played a leading role in the discovery of the heaviest elements in the periodic table. It is one of only two elements named after a person who was alive at the time of naming, the other being seaborgium, and the only element whose eponym is alive as of 2024.
Element 118 was named after Yuri Oganessian, a pioneer in the discovery of synthetic elements, with the name oganesson (Og). Oganessian and the decay chain of oganesson-294 were pictured on a stamp of Armenia issued on 28 December 2017.
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, in Dubna, Moscow Oblast, Russia, is an international research center for nuclear sciences, with 5500 staff members including 1200 researchers holding over 1000 Ph.Ds from eighteen countries. Most scientists are scientists of Russian Federation.
Wang Ganchang
Postage stamp of the USSR, 1976
Georgy Flyorov, founder of JINR
Yuri Oganessian