Nihonium

Nihonium takes its name from 'Nihon,' the Japanese word for Japan. It was first synthesized in 2003 at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science in Japan by Kosuke Morita and his team, who bombarded bismuth with zinc atoms. Nihonium is the first element to be discovered in an Asian country, making it a point of national pride for Japan.

Nihonium is an extremely unstable superheavy element. Its most stable known isotope has a half-life of about 20 seconds. Only a few atoms have ever been created, and no chemical properties have been experimentally measured. Based on its position in the periodic table below thallium, nihonium is predicted to behave as a metal, though relativistic effects might give it some unexpected properties.

Nihonium's symbol 'Nh' is a distinctive two-letter element in Spellement. While 'nh' is uncommon at word beginnings in English, partial emphasis lets spellers use 'n' or 'h' individually — both common consonants that appear in many English words, providing reliable word-building flexibility.