Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Astatine

Astatine

 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page. 

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/June 25, 2015 by — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:15, 8 June 2015 (UTC)



Astatine is a rare radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol At and atomic number 85. It occurs on Earth as the result of the radioactive decay of certain heavier elements. All of its isotopes are short-lived; the most stable is astatine-210, with a half-life of 8.1 hours. Accordingly, much less is known about astatine than most other elements. The observed properties are consistent with it behaving as a heavier analog of iodine; many other properties have been estimated based on this resemblance. Elemental astatine has never been viewed, because a mass large enough to be seen by the naked eye would be immediately vaporized by its radioactive heating. It is likely to have a dark or lustrous appearance and may be a semiconductor or possibly a metal; it will probably have a higher melting point than iodine. Chemically, astatine can behave like the other halogens (the group of elements including fluorine and chlorine), specifically as a heavier analog of iodine, as it is expected to form ionic astatides with alkali or alkaline earth metals and is known to form covalent compounds with nonmetals, including other halogens.
 * Most recent similar article(s): No chemistry/mineralogy article since the start of 2015
 * Main editors: R8R Gtrs, Sandbh
 * Promoted: April 30, 2015
 * Reasons for nomination: Just because there hasn't been a similar article in a while.
 * Support as nominator. TVShowFan122 (talk) 09:37, 5 June 2015 (UTC)