![]() Bunsen and Kirchhoff gave the new element a name based on the Latin word Caesius (sky or celestial blue) for the two bright blue lines in its spectrum.Ĭesium is the most abundant element on earth and is found in the minerals pollucite, avogadrite, pezzottaite, londonite, rhodicite, beryl and some potassium ores. Cesium was also the first spectroscopically discovered element of the German scientists Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff, who had invented the technology last year. Only one of the known isotopes of cesium is stable (133Cs), but with its 39 isotopes it is associated with xenon, the two elements with the largest amount of known isotopes. Mercury is the only element with a lower melting point. Cesium melts at 28 ° C, making it one of three elements (the others are gallium and mercury) that are liquid at or near room temperature. The heaviest of the stable alkali metals, cesium, has a silvery-golden appearance, is ductile and, with 0,2 on the Mohs scale, the softest element in the periodic table. ![]() Although cesium is only mildly toxic, it is considered hazardous because of its high reactivity and is usually packaged in glass ampoules in vacuo or under an inert gas such as argon. With an electron in the sixth and outermost shell, cesium is the most electropositive of all stable elements in the periodic table: the metal is extremely pyrophoric, ignites spontaneously when in contact with air, and explodes violently in water or ice at any temperature above -116 ° C.
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