Microblog Memes

I think the most crazy thing we could potentially encounter atomically (that we theorize about but haven't seen) is material from the possible "Island of stability" that could be (much) farther along in the periodic table from things we've created.

For the uninformed, the island of stability is a range on the periodic table with atomic numbers in the ~170's (currently the element with the highest atomic number - how many protons in the nucleus - that humans have synthesized is Oganesson, with an atomic number of 118) where it is believed that nuclei will remain (more?) stable, rather than breaking down in microseconds after we slam other elements into each other with devices such as the Large Hadron Collider.

There are SO many challenges with even getting to 118. Getting higher than that is theoretically possible but so far we haven't worked it out. A super advanced civilization might have the means and/or dedicated the resources, and be the beneficiary of whatever properties exist in the advanced/exotic matter that we know nothing about.

That being said, we would still be able to analyze the materials and understand what we're looking at, even if our WTF meters are breaking from the overload because we don't know how they managed to achieve it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability