Xenon - Noble, but Gassy Trivia Quiz

Answer: William Ramsey and Morris Travers

William Ramsey, a Scottish chemist, and Morris Travers, an English chemist, were able to liquify air by cooling it until it became a liquid. The air is then warmed back to a gas, but the gases boil away at different rates, which is how xenon was discovered. Ramsey, who had recently discovered argon using this method, was distilling more of it from an air sample for further study.

A liter of this argon was forgotten about for a week and evaporated. This gave Ramsey the idea to study and distill the remaining liquid. This led to the discovery of krypton. Travers was interested to see if anything further could be learned if this sample was distilled again. Ramsey and Travers tested this idea, and xenon was discovered.

Answer: Yes

It was once thought that the noble gases were inert and unable to form compounds due to having eight valence electrons. In 1962, Neil Bartlett conducted an experiment where he had platinum hexafluoride, a red gas, in one container and xenon, a colorless gas, in another container.

He combined them and an orange-yellow solid appeared. It was identified as xenon hexafluoroplatinate. This was the first known noble gas compound.

Answer: 54

The atomic number tells you how many electrons and protons an element has. Neutrons are calculated by subtracting the atomic mass from the atomic number. So xenon has 54 electrons, 54 protons, and 77 neutrons.

Answer: Colorless and odorless

In its natural state xenon is colorless. However, when it's in an excited electrical state it has a bluish color. Xenon is used in various types of lamps/lights including, but not limited to, headlights and cinema projectors. Ammonia is colorless with a pungent smell, hydrogen sulfide is a colorless gas that smells like rotten eggs, and fluorine is pale yellow with a pungent smell.

Answer: Greek word for stranger

William Ramsey and Morris Travers examined xenon using a spectrometer, a device that separates different wavelengths of light. The normally colorless gas showed blue lines when examined this way. However, all Greek and Latin roots involving blue were used. Ramsey decided to name it after the Greek word for stranger, "xenos", due to the rarity of xenon.

Answer: No

Xenon has no known biological role. Xenon, however, can be used in certain types of diagnostic tools such as CT and MRI scans, primarily being used to diagnose lung conditions.

Answer: Xe

Xenon is the only element on the periodic table that starts with X. It is also the only symbol to include the letter x. Symbols can be taken from the English name, such as "O" for Oxygen or from another language such as Latin, Gold is Au from its Latin name aurum.

Answer: Mineral springs

Scientists had predicted there was more xenon on earth than was found in the atmosphere. It was eventually found in some mineral springs such as the thermal springs at Yellowstone National Park.

Answer: Yes

Xenon has also been found on Mars, Jupiter, and the Sun in addition to in meteorites. In 1918, the Richardton meteorite fell and landed in North Dakota. John Reynolds, a U.S. physicist, discovered xenon on this meteorite in 1960 using mass spectrometry.

In August 1972 the Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars. This spacecraft had a number of scientific instruments onboard, some of which were used to identify the components of the atmosphere. One of the gases was xenon. In 2012, the Curiosity rover landed on Mars for further research, it confirmed the existence of xenon on Mars.

In December 1997 the Galileo spacecraft approached Jupiter. It dropped a probe into the atmosphere and was able to analyze it and, again, xenon was found.

The Sun's solar wind was analyzed during the Genesis spacecraft mission, launched in August 2001. The solar wind, a wind that originates from the Sun, was found to contain xenon, but only in very low quantities.

Answer: Oganesson

This discovery became the seventh noble gas - the others are helium, neon, argon, krypton, radon, and xenon, of course.. Oganesson was first created in 2002 and again in 2005. It was officially recognized in 2015 and named after the lead physicist who discovered it. It has no known uses and is only produced through the use of particle accelerators.