Einsteinium-253, an isotope of einsteinium, was identified by a team of scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Argonne National Laboratory, and the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in 1952. This project was led by Albert Ghiorso.
The discovery of einsteinium was quite unexpected. It was identified after the first thermonuclear explosion which took place in the Pacific on October 31, 1952. Fall-out material gathered from a neighbouring atoll was sent to Berkeley, California for analysis. Within a month they had discovered and identified 200 atoms of a new element einsteinium. It was named after Albert Einstein.
Fermium was also discovered unexpectedly when this debris was further analyzed. But these results were not published until 1955. This element was named after Enrico Fermi, a nuclear physicist.
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