Which element is named after the planet Uranus?

Uranium is the element named after the planet Uranus. German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovered it in 1789 while analyzing pitchblende, a mineral now known to contain uranium-bearing compounds.

Klaproth produced a yellow substance from pitchblende and believed he had isolated a new metal. He named the element Uranit, later changed to uranium, after Uranus. The planet had been discovered by William Herschel only eight years earlier, making the name part of a contemporary tradition of linking new elements to astronomical discoveries.

Klaproth had not actually isolated metallic uranium; his product was uranium oxide. The metal itself was first isolated in 1841 by Eugène-Melchior Péligot, who reduced uranium tetrachloride with potassium. Uranium’s radioactive nature was recognized much later, after Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in uranium compounds in 1896.

Uranus is also connected to the names of neptunium and plutonium by planetary sequence: uranium was named for Uranus, neptunium for Neptune, and plutonium for Pluto. Mercury, one of the wrong options, is named for the Roman god and has no naming connection to Uranus.