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This superheavy element would be something entirely new to our planet.

Many decades have passed since this image emerged, so it is time to take a fresh look at the stability of superheavy nuclei and see where the journey to the limits of mass and charge might lead us.

This raises questions such as how many more of these superheavy species are waiting to be discovered, where -- if at all -- is a fundamental limit in the creation of these elements, and what are the characteristics of the so-called island of enhanced stability.

In a recent review, experts in theoretical and experimental chemistry and physics of the heaviest elements and their nuclei summarize the major challenges and offer a fresh view on new superheavy elements and the limit of the periodic table.

This led to the notion of a so-called island of stability of superheavy nuclei separated from uranium and its neighbors by a sea of instability.