Astatine from the Greek astatos is a radioactive chemical element with atomic number 85. It occurs on Earth only as the result of the radioactive decay of certain heavier elements.
Elemental astatine has never been viewed, because a mass large enough to be seen by the naked human eye would be immediately vaporized by the heat generated by its own radioactivity. Astatine may be dark, or it may have a metallic appearance and be a semiconductor, or it may even be a metal.
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