Period 2 element two make up all natural occurrence of lithium on Earth, although further isotopes have been synthesized. In ionic compounds, lithium loses an electron to become positively charged, forming the cation Li. Lithium is the first alkali metal in the periodic table, and the first metal of any kind in the periodic table. At standard temperature and pressure, lithium is a soft, silver-white, highly reactive metal. With a density of 0.564 g·cm, lithium is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Lithium is one of the few elements synthesized in the Big Bang, making it a primordial element. Lithium
Metallic hydrogen increases significantly, the band-gap gradually fell to . Because the thermal energy of the fluid (the temperature became about due to compression of the sample) was above , the hydrogen might be considered metallic. Many experiments are continuing in the production of metallic hydrogen in laboratory conditions at static compression and low temperature. Arthur Ruoff and Chandrabhas Narayana from Cornell University in 1998, and later Paul Loubeyre and René LeToullec from Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique, France in 2002, have shown that at pressures close to those at the center of the Earth () and temperatures of , hydrogen is still