the.com/xenon
A noble gas too cool to react, yet it headlines car headlights and anesthesia.
means A heavy, colorless, odorless noble gas present in trace amounts in Earth's atmosphere, used in specialty lighting, certain anesthetics, and ion propulsion.
from Coined from Greek 'xenon,' the neuter form of 'xenos' meaning 'strange' or 'foreign' — the same root behind 'xenophobia.' When chemists isolated it in 1898 by distilling liquid air, it turned up as a tiny, mysterious residue after the more abundant noble gases (argon, krypton) had been accounted for — a true stranger in the sample, hence the name.
- name origin
- greek for stranger, discovered as a leftover
- atomic number
- 54, dense enough to deepen your voice comically
- ion engines
- propels spacecraft like NASA's Dawn probe
- medical use
- doubles as a surprisingly good anesthetic gas