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Currently, the heaviest element on the periodic table is oganesson, which has an atomic mass of 294 and was officially named in 2016. Like every element on the periodic table, nearly all of oganesson's mass comes from protons and neutrons (types of baryons) that are themselves made of three quarks each. A crucial feature of all known baryonic matter is that its quarks are bound together so tightly by the strong force that they are inseparable. As particles made of bound quarks (such as protons and neutrons) are called hadrons, scientists refer to the ground state of baryonic matter as...

Friday, 22 November, 2002, 14:39 GMTDid quark matter strike Earth? By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor A group of researchers have identified two seismic events that they think provide the first evidence of a previously undetected form of matter passing through the Earth. We can't prove that this was strange quark matter, but that is the only explanation that has been offered so far The so-called strange quark matter is so dense that a piece the size of a human cell would weigh a tonne. The two events under study both took place in 1993. Other scientists...