Chemistry’s periodic table is expanding. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has announced two new elements in the periodic table on Thursday—livermorium and flerovium.

The three new elements, 110, 111 and 112, have been named darmstadtium (Ds), roentgenium (Rg) and copernicium (Cn).

These five elements are so large and unstable that they are called “super heavy” or Transuranium elements and are not found in nature.

Scientists of Russia’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, in collaboration with the researchers of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, are studying the details and other characteristics of these elements.

Element 114, previously known as ununquadium, is now called flerovium (Fl), and element 116, which was temporarily named Ununhexium (later Moscovium) has been named livermorium (Lv).

Elements 114 and 116 will fit in the seventh period and p-block of the periodic table, while 110, 111, 112 will fall in d-block, but in the same period.

All these five elements were synthesized at Russia’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Although, elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 have been created, they are yet to be confirmed and named.

The researchers first observed flerovium after firing calcium ions at a plutonium target and discovered livermorium, way back in 2000, when they mixed calcium and curium together.

Proposing these names for the elements honors not only the individual contributions of scientists from these laboratories to the fields of nuclear science, heavy-element research, and super-heavy-element research, but also the phenomenal cooperation and collaboration that has occurred between scientists at these two locations, Bill Goldstein, associate director of Lawrence Livermore National Labs' Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, said in a statement.

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