Why is the Oxygen 28 Experiment Important?
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Oxygen 28 is an extremely heavy isotope of Oxygen with 20 neutrons and 8 protons in its nucleus.
By comparison the most common isotope if Oxygen is Oxygen 16 with 8 protons, and 8 neutrons.
Attempts to create and study Oxygen 28 are important because it helps us better understand how larger stable isotopes work.
Oxygen 28 was believed to be a *magic number* meaning that our predictions said that it should be stable despite being so heavy, but so far the experiments have shown that this isn’t the case.
If that is the case it means that we need to change our understanding of how heavier elements work.
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