What element is the biggest naturally occurring element?

Answer 1

If big means large atomic number and naturally occurring means if the world lacked humans to make nuclear tests or deposits, then Plutonium, element 94, is the answer. Some time ago plutonium was discovered in uranium ore, therefore making it the biggest, since technetium, francium, promethium, protactinium, neptunium, and other elements with atomic numbers inside the range 1 - 94 including endpoints have been found as natural, Plutonium is the biggest. Why not Americium or above? Some people say it's Californium, 98, to be the largest but alas that has been wrong since Americium all the way to Californium are only natural with pesky rocket scientists messing with fusion. Hope that helps.

Answer 2

That depends on what you mean by "biggest" and what you mean by "naturally occurring."

Let's assume that "biggest" = "highest atomic number."

We've still got to deal with "naturally occurring". At first glance, it might appear that any element we can find in an ore is '"naturally occurring", but there's a small problem with this: most radioactive elements decay into other radioactive elements, so there are small quantities of elements that have "just been made" present. Naturally occurring is usually defined in such a way that it means "significant quantities of atoms of a particular element that were present when the Earth formed are still around." At Earth's current age, that sets the cutoff at somewhere around a half-life of 80 million years.

For this reason, Uranium is usually chosen as the stopping point... there are isotopes of uranium with very, very long half-lives (billions of years for 238U, hundreds of millions of years for 235U), so it can exist for lengths of time that are significant in geological terms. However, the natural breakdown of radioactive materials can "naturally", albeit briefly (at least on a geological scale), produce elements of a higher atomic number than uranium... specifically, plutonium is found naturally in trace amounts in concentrated uranium ores.

Answer 3

Cesium has the largest atoms in terms of radius and size but Ununoctium(unconfirmed) is the largest element in terms of number of atoms and overall mass. The biggest confirmed element is Hassium in terms of mass.

Answer 4

The biggest naturally occurring element is uranium, with an atomic number of 92 and an Atomic Mass of around 238 grams per mole.

Answer 5

By atomic "size" and atomic weight, uranium has the greatest atomic weight among all naturally occurring elements.

Answer 6

Uranium (atomic number 92) is the "last" naturally occurring element in that it has the highest atomic number of any naturally occurring element.

Answer 7

No, it is not Uranium. This is the heaviest but notbiggest,

the biggest is Cesium, Cs, its atomic radius being 265 in stead of 156 pm for U

Answer 8

generally, Uranium.

Answer 9

Plutonium

Answer 10

B3