Curium [Cm] (CAS-ID: 7440-51-9) locate me
An: 96 N: 151 Am: [247]
Group Name: Actinoid
Block: f-block  Period: 7 (actinoid)
State: solid at 298 K
Colour: silver Classification: Metallic
Boiling Point: 3383K (3110'C)
Melting Point: 1613K (1340'C)
Density: 13.51g/cm3
Shell Structure diagram | Atomic Radius diagram
Isotopes | More Info
Discovery Information
Who: G.T.Seaborg, R.A.James, A. Ghiorso
When: 1944
Where: United States
Name Origin
In honor of Pierre and Marie Curie.
Sources
Made by bombarding plutonium with helium ions. So radioactive it glows in the dark.
Uses
As curium is only available in extremely limited quantities, it has few uses, however, it was used on a Mars mission as an alpha particle source for the Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer.
Notes
The isotope curium-248 has been synthesized only in milligram quantities, but curium-242 and curium-244 are made in multigram amounts, which allows for the determination of some of the element's properties.
Curium bio-accumulates in bone tissue where its radiation destroys bone marrow and thus stops red blood cell creation.