Nobelium is a member of the actinide series, which stretches from actinium (Ac) to lawrencium (Lr). Nobelium is a synthetic element; none occurs naturally on earth.
The element is named for Alfred Nobel, the discoverer of dynamite and the man who endowed the prestigious science prize that bears his name.
In 1957 a team of physicists from the U.S., Great Britain, and Sweden gathered in Sweden at the Nobel Institute. They bombarded a target of curium--244 (244Cm) with 12C ions, and they believed the product to be an isotope of a new element, which they named nobelium. However, Seaborg and his team at the University of California could not reproduce the Swedish work. Instead, in 1958 they found element 102 as a product of the process
246Cm + 12C 4 1n + 254No
Similarly, a group in the former Soviet Union could not reproduce the Swedish work. For this reason, the California group was given credit for the discovery of element 102, but the name nobelium was retained.
At least 10 isotopes of No are known. The most stable isotope is 259No, which has a half-life of about 58 minutes.
Given the extremely short half life of nobelium, it is not surprising that relatively little is known about its chemistry. However, it is thought that its compounds have oxidation numbers of +2 and +3, with +2 being the more stable.