Bimodal symmetric fission observed in the heaviest elements

We measured the mass and kinetic-energy partitioning in the spontaneous fission of /sup 258/Fm, /sup 259/Md, /sup 260/Md, /sup 258/No, and /sup 260/(104). All fissioned with mass distributions that were symmetric. Total-kinetic-energy distributions peaked near either 200 or 235 MeV. Surprisingly, these energy distributions were skewed upward or downward from the peak in each case, except for /sup 260/(104), indicating a composite of two energy distributions. We interpret this as a mixture of liquid-drop-like and fragment-shell directed symmetric fission, although theory had not anticipated this phenomenon.