Strontium is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive.
Core Principles & Analysis
Adair Crawford recognized a new earth in 1790 in a mineral from Strontian, Scotland, and Humphry Davy isolated strontium metal by electrolysis in 1808.
Its salts burn with a brilliant crimson that no other element matches, and radioactive strontium-90 from nuclear fallout lodges in bone by mimicking calcium.
Strontium colors red fireworks and signal flares, once blocked X-rays in cathode-ray TV glass, and strontium aluminate provides long-lasting glow-in-the-dark pigments.