Rhenium is a silvery-gray, heavy, third-row transition metal with one of the highest melting points.
Core Principles & Analysis
Walter Noddack, Ida Tacke, and Otto Berg discovered rhenium in 1925, the last stable element found, naming it after the river Rhine.
It has the third-highest melting point of the metals at 3,186 degrees Celsius and averages only about one part per billion in Earth's crust.
Rhenium is alloyed into single-crystal nickel superalloy turbine blades for jet engines and pairs with platinum in catalysts that make high-octane gasoline.