Meitnerium - 109Mt: historical information
In August 1982 the first atom of the element meitnerium with atomic number 109 was detected at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany. The isotope of element 109 which was discovered has an atomic mass number of 266 (that is, 266 times heavier than hydrogen). The new element was produced by fusing an iron (58Fe) and a bismuth atom (209Bi) together in a reaction that produces a neutron. This was achieved by accelerating the iron atoms to a high energy in the heavy ion accelerator UNILAC at GSI.