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Protactinium saw 492x more Wikipedia readers than usual

Protactinium drew 88,586 views on 2026-05-29, 492x more than the usual 180 a day over the previous 60 days.

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Protactinium

Chemical element with atomic number 91 (Pa)

492x
88,586 views
usually 180 a day
Daily Wikipedia pageviews for Protactinium025K50K75K100K88,58615 Apr7 May29 May
Wikipedia pageviews, 29 May 2026 wikispikes.com
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Daily Wikipedia pageviews for Protactinium
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2026-05-2988,586
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What this article is

Protactinium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pa and atomic number 91. It is a dense, radioactive, silvery-gray actinide metal which readily reacts with oxygen, water vapor, and inorganic acids. It forms various chemical compounds, in which protactinium is usually present in the oxidation state +5, but it can also assume +4 and even +3 or +2 states. Concentrations of protactinium in the Earth's crust are typically a few parts per trillion, but may reach up to a few parts per million in some uraninite ore deposits. Because of its scarcity, high radioactivity, and high toxicity, there are currently no uses for protactinium outside scientific research, and for this purpose, protactinium is mostly extracted from spent nuclear fuel. It is also the only highly radioactive mononuclidic element that is not also monoisotopic, occurring almost exclusively through the decay of Uranium-235.

Summary text from the Wikipedia article "Protactinium", available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article.

How this was measured

Views are Wikimedia's own pageview counts for en.wikipedia, filtered to agent=user so automated traffic is excluded. The baseline is the median of the previous 60 days, which is used instead of the mean so that an earlier surge cannot flatten a later one. The multiple is the day's views divided by that median.

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