• History
• Uranium
• Thorium
• Uses of other actinides

The actinides (or actinoids) are the chemical elements with atomic numbers between 90 and 109 inclusively. (An atomic number indicates the number of protons in an atom.) Actinides occur between Groups 3 and 4 in Period 7 of the periodic table. All elements in this family are radioactive (that is, they spontaneously release subatomic particles or energy as their nuclei decay). Five actinides have been found in nature: thorium, protoactinium, uranium, neptunium, and plutonium. The other actinides have been produced artificially in nuclear reactors or particle accelerators (atom-smashers).

History

For many years, the list of chemical elements known to scientists ended with number 92, uranium. Scientists were...