There are 118 elements on the periodic table, but sometimes, it seems like just a handful get all the attention.
We're always talking about carbon, and oxygen, and hydrogen, and nitrogen, maybe with a little iron and calcium thrown in if we're feeling extra generous.
And sure, we're all made mostly out of those elements, and they're some of the most common elements in the universe, so it makes some sense that they get top billing.
But there's a whole periodic table out there, and we humans are great at finding ways to use just about anything that sticks around for long enough.
So here are eight of the less famous elements that you might not hear about all the time, but still play surprisingly important roles in the technology all around us.
Most people probably haven't even heard of praseodymium, but it's right there at atomic number 59, with the symbol Pr.
Praseodymium is a lanthanide, which means you'll usually find it sitting in the first row below the rest of the periodic table.
This makes the table a little more compact, but there's also a good reason that chemists put the lanthanides in their own little section.
They tend to share a bunch of common properties, since the electrons around the lanthanides can act pretty similarly from one element to the next.
Lanthanides generally aren't great at conducting electricity, and they typically make strong bonds with other elements.
