All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 62, a lanthanide
The first element named, indirectly, after a person, and half of the magnets that keep working when things get hot.
Period 6, in the lanthanide row set below the main table. The other lanthanides are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.
Like the other lanthanides, it gives up three electrons to form the Sm³⁺ ion in most of its compounds.
Found in monazite and bastnäsite, mostly mined in China.
Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran found it in 1879 in the mineral samarskite, which had been named after Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets, a Russian mining engineer who supplied the samples. That makes samarium the first element named, by way of a mineral, after a person.
Samarium-cobalt magnets hold their strength at high temperatures and resist corrosion, so they are used in aerospace and military equipment and in some electric guitar pickups. Samarium-153 eases bone pain from cancer, samarium absorbs neutrons in reactor control rods, and samarium(II) iodide is a tool for organic chemists.