Overview

Samarium is one of the rare earth elements found in Row 6 of the periodic table. The periodic table is a chart that shows how chemical elements are related to each other. The rare earth metals are not really very rare in the Earth's surface. The name comes from the fact that these elements are very difficult to separate from each other. For a long time, chemists knew very little about the individual elements. A more correct name for the rare earth elements is the lanthanide series. It is named after the element lanthanum, a transition metal also often considered a lanthanide.

Samarium looks and behaves like most other metals, but it has relatively few uses. One of the most important is in the manufacture of very powerful magnets. Compounds of samarium are also used to color glass and in television tubes.