Of the first 82 chemical elements in the periodic table, 80 have isotopes considered to be stable. Overall, there are 251 known stable isotopes in total.
Background Atomic nuclei consist of protons and neutrons, which attract each other through the nuclear force, while protons repel each other via the electric force due to their positive charge. These two forces compete, leading to some combinations of neutrons and protons being more stable than others. Neutrons stabilize the nucleus, because they attract protons, which helps offset the electrical repulsion between protons. As a result, as the number of protons increases, an increasing ratio of neutrons to protons is needed to form a stable nucleus; if too many or too few neutrons are present with regard to the optimum ratio, the nucleus becomes unstable and subject to certain types of nuclear decay. Unstable isotopes decay through various radioactive decay pathways, most commonly alpha decay or beta decay, but rarer types of decay including spontaneous fission and cluster decay are known; more detail can be found at radioactive decay. Of the first 82 elements in the periodic table, 80 have isotopes considered to be stable. The 83rd element, bismuth, was traditionally regarded as having the heaviest stable isotope, bismuth-209, but in 2003 researchers in Orsay, France, measured the decay of 209Bi; the currently accepted half-life is 2.01×1019 years. Technetium and promethium (atomic numbers 43 and 61, respectively) and all the elements with an atomic number over 82 only have isotopes that are known to undergo radioactive decay. No undiscovered elements are expected to be stable; therefore, lead is considered the heaviest stable element. However, it is possible that some isotopes that are now considered stable will be revealed to decay with extremely long half-lives (as happened with bismuth). For each of the 80 stable elements, the number of stable isotopes is given. Only 90 isotopes are stable against any possible decay, and an additional 161 are energetically unstable (see List of nuclides) but have never been observed to decay. Thus, 251 isotopes (nuclides) are stable by definition (including an excited state, tantalum-180m, for which no decay has yet been observed). In April 2019 it was announced that the half-life of xenon-124 had been measured to 1.8 × 1022 years. This is the longest half-life directly measured for any unstable isotope; only the (indirectly measured) half-life of tellurium-128 is longer. Of the chemical elements, only 1 element (tin) has 10 such stable isotopes, 5 have 7 stable isotopes, 7 have 6 stable isotopes, 11 have 5 stable isotopes, 9 have 4 stable isotopes, 5 have 3 stable isotopes, 16 have 2 stable isotopes, and 26 have 1 stable isotope. Additionally, 31 nuclides of the naturally occurring elements have unstable isotopes with a half-life long enough to have survived for the age of the Solar System (108 years or more), and an additional four such nuclides represent three elements (bismuth, thorium, uranium) having no stable isotope. These 35 radioactive naturally occurring nuclides comprise the radioactive primordial nuclides. The total number of primordial nuclides is then 251 (the stable nuclides) plus the 35 radioactive primordial nuclides, for a total of 286. The longest known half-life of 2.2 × 1024 years of tellurium-128 was measured by the method of detecting its radiogenic daughter xenon-128; this has been used for other isotopes with noble-gas daughters and barium-130 has also been measured no other way. Another notable example is the only naturally occurring isotope of bismuth, bismuth-209, which has been predicted to be unstable with a very long half-life, but has been observed to decay. Because of their long half-lives, such isotopes are still found on Earth in various quantities, and together with the stable isotopes they are called primordial isotopes. For a list of primordial nuclides in order of half-life, see List of nuclides. 118 chemical elements are known to exist. The first 94 are found in nature, and the remainder of the discovered elements are artificially produced, with isotopes all known to be radioactive with relatively short half-lives (see below). The elements in this list are ordered according to the lifetime of their most stable isotope. Of these, three elements (bismuth, thorium, and uranium) are primordial because they have half-lives long enough to still be found on the Earth, while all the others are produced either by radioactive decay or are synthesized in laboratories and nuclear reactors. Only 13 of the 38 unstable elements have a known isotope with a half-life of at least 100 years. Every known isotope of the remaining 25 elements is highly radioactive; these are used in academic research and sometimes in industry and medicine. Some of the heavier elements in the periodic table may be revealed to have yet-undiscovered isotopes with longer lifetimes than those listed here. About 338 nuclides are found naturally on Earth. These comprise not only the 286 primordials, but also include about 52 shorter-lived isotopes that either are daughters of primordial isotopes (such as radium from uranium) or are made by energetic natural processes, such as carbon-14 made from atmospheric nitrogen by bombardment from cosmic rays.
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