| Carl Klutzke ( @ 2007-12-09 09:35:00 |
| Entry tags: | questions |
Plutonium
Yesterday I was helping Brandon study for chemistry. The question came up, where does plutonium come from?
We make it. It was originally created by bombarding uranium with the nuclei of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) atoms. It appears that so far we've produced 300,000kg of the stuff, enough to make 48,387 of the "fat man" bombs dropped upon Nagasaki. A very small amount has been found in nature, most notably in the natural nuclear reactor discovered in Oklo, Gabon. (Wikipedia)