What is Mendelevium atom?

   

 Mendelevium is a synthetic element with the symbol Md and atomic number 101.  A metallic radioactive transuranic element in the actinide series, it is the first element by atomic number that currently cannot be produced in macroscopic quantites through neutron bombardment of lighter elements.  It is the third-to-last actinide and the ninth transuranic element.  It can only be produced in particle accelerators by bombarding lighter elements with charged particles.  A total of seventeen mendelevium isotopes are known, the most stable being 258Md with a half-life of 51 days; nevertheless, the shorter-lived 256Md is most commonly used in chemistry because it can be produced on a larger scale.  

     Mendelevium was discovered by bombarding einsteinium with alpha particles in 1955, the same method still used to produce it today.  It was named after Dmitri Mendeleev, father of the periodic table of the chemical elements.  Using available microgram quantities of the isotope einsteinium-253, over a million mendelevium atoms may be produced each hour.   The chemistry of mendelevium is typical for the late actinides, with a preponderance of the +3 oxidation state.  All known isotopes of mendelevium have relatively short half-lives; there are currently no uses for it outside basic scientific research and only small amounts are produced.