| Date | Text | |
|---|---|---|
29 Aug 1982
Transglobe expedition |
Transglobe expedition In 1982, the 52,000-mile “Transglobe” expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the world's polar axis. Beginning in 1979, British explorer Ranulph Fiennes with Charles Burton had travelled for three years around the Earth via the Poles circling the earth on longitude 0, the Greenwich Meridian. They had reached the North Pole on 11 Apr 1982, and the South Pole sixteen months before that. Their journey across Antarctica took 67 days, despite the advantages of motorised skidoos. The ocean voyage was undertaken in a craft named Benjamin Bowring. The expedition cost an estimated $18 million. |
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29 Aug 1982
Element 109 |
Element 109 In 1982, an atom of a new element was made. It has been given the proposed name of Meitnerium, symbol Mt. Physicists at the Heavy Ion Research Laboratory, Darmstadt, West Germany made and identified element 109 by bombing a target of Bi-209 with accelerated nuclei of Fe-58. After a week of target bombardment a single fused nucleus was produced. The combined energy of two nuclei had to be sufficiently high so that the repulsive forces between the nuclei could be overcome. The team confirmed the existence of element 109 by four independent measurements. The nucleus started to decay 5 ms after striking the detector. This experiment demonstrated the feasibility of using fusion techniques as a method of making new, heavy nuclei. |
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