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One of four example estimates of the plutonium (Pu-239) plume from the 1957 fire at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. The Rocky Flats Plant, a former United States nuclear weapons production facility located about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Denver, caused radioactive (primarily plutonium, americium, and uranium) contamination within and outside its boundaries. [1]
The Rocky Flats Plant was a United States manufacturing complex that produced nuclear weapons parts near Denver, Colorado. [2] The facility's primary mission was the fabrication of plutonium pits, [3] the fissionable part of a bomb that produces a nuclear explosion.
After the fire, plutonium was detected near a school 12 miles (19 km) away and around Denver 17 miles (27 km) away. An independent group of scientists conducting off-site testing 13 years later found plutonium contamination in areas in nearby Rocky Flats to be 400 to 1,500 times higher than normal, higher than any ever recorded near any urban ...
Watchdogs are raising new concerns about legacy contamination in Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to a renewed effort to manufacture key components for nuclear weapons. A ...
Encasing the bomb's plutonium pit in a tamper (a layer of dense material) decreases the critical mass by reflecting escaping neutrons back into the plutonium core. This reduces the critical mass from 16 kg to 10 kg, which is a sphere with a diameter of about 10 centimeters (4 in). [ 121 ]
The pits of the first nuclear weapons were solid, with an urchin neutron initiator in their center. The Gadget and Fat Man used pits made of 6.2 kg of solid hot pressed plutonium-gallium alloy (at 400 °C and 200 MPa in steel dies – 750 °F and 29,000 psi) half-spheres of 9.2 cm (3.6 in) diameter, with a 2.5 cm (1 in) internal cavity for the initiator.
Apr. 14—It's been almost 80 years since the first atomic bomb was detonated, and scientists say there's still much to learn about how nuclear devices function as they reach the point of exploding.
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal was a United States chemical weapons manufacturing center located in the Denver Metropolitan Area in Commerce City, Colorado. The site was completed December 1942, [1] operated by the United States Army throughout the later 20th century and was controversial among local residents until its closure in 1992.