who discovered selenium

Selenium was discovered in 1817 by Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Johan Gottlieb Gahn. They identified it as a new chemical element while analyzing a red precipitate from sulfuric acid production residues in Sweden. Berzelius named the element selenium after the Greek word for the Moon, "Selene," due to its similarity to the element tellurium, which was named after the Earth.