Chemical Element: xenon

(Modern Latin: from Greek, xenon, "stranger"; gas)

Chemical-Element Information

Symbol: Xe
Atomic number: 54
Year discovered: 1898

Discovered by: Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916), British chemist, and Morris William Travers (1872-1961), British chemist.


  • Xenon was discovered by Sir William Ramsay and Morris Travers in 1898 in the residue left after evaporating liquid air components.
  • Krypton and neon were discovered by the same methods and by the same workers only weeks earlier.
  • They had to work with huge volumes of air to produce just a little xenon since it turned out that it is only present to the extent of about 0.087 ppm in the atmosphere.
  • Xenon is used to a small extent in gaseous tube lighting, in negative glow lamps, and in lamps that produce flashes of light of extremely short duration such as are desired for high-speed photography.
  • It was used experimentally in arc lamps for lighthouses.

Name in other languages:

French: xénon

German: Xenon

Italian: xeno

Spanish: xenón


Information about other elements may be seen at this Chemical Elements List.

A special unit about words that include chemo-, chem- may be seen here.