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Physics: This is the slowest radioactive decay ever spotted

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It takes 1 trillion times the age of the universe for a xenon-124 sample to shrink by half

(Emphasis below added by me.)

Science News said:
For the first time, researchers have directly observed an exotic type of radioactive decay called two-neutrino double electron capture.

The decay, seen in xenon-124 atoms, happens so sparingly that it would take 18 sextillion years (18 followed by 21 zeros) for a sample of xenon-124 to shrink by half, making the decay extremely difficult to detect. The long-anticipated observation of two-neutrino double electron capture, reported in the April 25 Nature, lays the groundwork for researchers to glimpse a yet unseen, even rarer version of this decay: neutrinoless double electron capture.

Observing that process would confirm that subatomic particles called neutrinos are their own antimatter particles, which could help resolve the mystery of why our universe is made almost entirely of matter, rather than antimatter.

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