Something odd: Tetraxenongold

I was browsing around wikipedia and came across this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraxenonogold%28II%29

It's really odd because Gold and Xenon are both notoriously unreactive. Now I don't know a lot about chemistry, but this piques my interest (on account of its extreme weirdness) and I was wondering if any of my fellows here might know about its physical properties.

>AuXe4 compounds are only stable at low temperatures (like -40C) or high pressure since the Au-Xe bonds are weak.

As a side-not -40C = -40F... and is also the freezing point of mercury.

>The AuXe42+ cation is dark red, and can be brought to room temperature only under 10 atmospheres of Xenon gas.

That’s interesting; red is my favorite color... I’ve looked around a bit on google’s image-search and can’t find a picture of AuXe4.
10 Atmospheres appears to be around 150 psi, which is pretty high-pressure but nothing near the 1000psi that I heard tossed around in some of the BP/DeepWater-Horizon talks.

Life and Times

Rumor has it Xenon was born as the first child of Neon and Helium. Apparently its true form is hideously ugly, and consequently most of its early life was spent locked in the bathroom, refusing to come out. An exception was made when the circus was in town, because then Xenon could put on a mask and blend in. Eventually, Xenon met a cute clown from the circus named Fluorine and fell in love. Despite pressures from the other noble gases, the two went on to have a long-lasting affair during which Fluorine lured Xenon out of the bathroom and into the real world. As soon as Xenon was free, a tragedy occurred. A passing electric current collided with Xenon, and resulted in a massive explosion. This explosion was one of the key factors in creating the solar system.

Some gynecologists, and even a few scientists, are of the opinion that Xenon also had a brief attraction to Oxygen before the tragedy. Needless to say, these people are at odds with the supporters of Xenon actually being Oxygen, with the exception of Ronald McDonald, who is both a scientist and a gynecologist, and who holds both views.

Practical Uses

Xenon had so much pent-up energy from sitting in the bathroom for so long that it has been stored in a large secret facility by the FBI. This energy is dolled out, always for huge amounts of money, to a variety of companies, mainly lamp and camera makers. It is also purportedly being used to create light sabers and other laser-type weapons for the U.S.A. to use in World War III. The government, of course, vehemently denies this.

Xenon can also be used as a rare form of anesthesia. Only one photograph of its true form is known, taken by Andrew G. Werdna. Sadly, the shock of seeing something so horribly disfigured as Xenon caused Andrew to die on the spot. This same effect is used for the anesthetic, being lessened by the fact that it is only a photograph and not the real thing. Patients are shown the picture and immediately pass out. Xenon has also been found leaking out of many time machines, but since nobody really understands time travel, it is unknown whether Xenon is vital to the process.

Properties

Xenon was highly radioactive, which some say led to its decay into nonexistence. Still others say this means that it must have survived the explosion and still be alive, hiding somewhere. This theory is based on the fact that Xenon had a half-life of 16 million years. Xenon also had nine stable isotopes, which it kept in a box in the back of its closet. This collection is the largest of all the elements, except for that of tin’s, which has ten stable isotopes and really likes to show them off.

>Hmm, it does seem strange that they would bond. I wonder if this flat lattice is weakly held together by some anti-ferromagnetic effect. Spin up on Gold, spin down on Xenon, the whole structure being lower-energy than would be possible for separated atoms.

Maybe... though that would raise the question of what its electro-magnetic properties are.
Gold is a wonderful electrical conductor, but Xenon isn’t [IIRC, that changes on high-energy and is what is responsible for “neon” lights].
Gold and Xenon are both Diamagnetic, meaning they “don’t like” magnetic fields and want to “get away” from them.

>Or maybe D-shell bonding is just more complex than the S and P bonding we’re all used to.

That could be.
On that note, I was reading about how trapping molecules in carbon fullerenes could be used to keep/store/study [some] atoms/molecules; which raises the question of using C60 or somesuch to do so. (Of course AuXe4 might be too big, physically; or it may not be enough to hold AuXe4 together under normal pressure and temperature... which would make using it a a storage medium somewhat moot.)

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