MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/. The staff of the Nuclear Reactions Laboratory of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) has synthesized the lightest or the "neutron-deficient" nobelium isotope 249No for the first time in the world, the Russian research institute’s press service told TASS.

Nobelium is one of the heaviest actinoid metals and is listed 102nd in the Element Periodic Table. It does not exist in nature and was produced artificially in the mid-1960s at the JINR accelerator in Dubna, the Moscow region. The longest-living nucleus of a nobelium atom has 259 protons and neutrons and its half-life is about an hour. The aforementioned isotope has ten fewer neutrons and lives for just 44 milliseconds.

"A team of scientists from the Nuclear Reactions Laboratory of JINR was investigating nuclear decay properties of neutron-deficient nuclei of nobelium and rutherfordium. The experiments resulted in the synthesis of a new, most neutron-deficient isotope, 249No," the press service said. "The results obtained will help scholars to progress in understanding the properties and stability limits of nuclear matter," the press service added.