Technetium
Before the element was found, many of the properties of element 43 were predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev. Mendeleev noticed a gap in his periodic table and named the element in the gap eka-manganese. In 1937 the technetium isotope 97Tc was the first element to be artificially produced. This was the reason why he named it Technetium as in Greek, τεχνητος means "artificial". Most technetium made on Earth is a by-product of fission of uranium-235 in nuclear reactors. It is extracted from nuclear fuel rods. On earth, technetium occurs naturally only in uranium ores as a product of spontaneous fission. The amount of technetium in the ore is very small but has been measured. The longest half-life of Technetium is 4.2 million years (98Tc). This means that its detection in red giants in 1952 helped support the theory that stars can produce heavier elements.