It’s official. The universe’s newest named element (the universe according to human perspective, of course) is: Copernicum – element 112. This isn’t the most important news in science, in fact, it’s not news since the element was discovered in Sigurd Hofmann’s lab at the Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany in 1996 – but still, new elements and their names don’t come along often. The new ones discovered recently are, in a sense, artificial and exist only in brief seconds inside of atomic colliders. The last natural element on the table is Uranium (92); thereby Copernicum is transuranic and super-heavy with 112 protons. There you have it, a newly named element, as officially recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The name honors Nicolaus Copernicus – he of the ‘Earth revolves around the Sun’ fame.