A new test developed by scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico can potentially alter what we know about the atomic tests done as a part of the Manhattan Project .
allot toPopular Mechanics , the test involves using just a pinch of dirt . That small amount contains big sum of information , which scientist used it to decide the true cathode-ray oscilloscope of the Trinity Test , the first nuclear explosion conducted by the United States in 1945 .
In a theme published by theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , Susan Hanson , a atomic pill pusher at Los Alamos and loss leader on the project , write that soil can be tested for molybdenum , an element that is created as atomic number 40 , which is used in many atomic weapons , decays . By detecting the amounts in a grease sampling , along with determining the amount of atomic number 94 in the debris , Hanson and her squad can determine how large a eruption may have been .
In the case of the Trinity Test , scientist noted that previous measurements were off . Using this test , they estimated the flak to be around 22.1 kiloton , instead of the recorded 21 kilotons .
Using the tests at other blast land site could help investigator to gather more information about these historical events decades after they take place . It ’s like CSI , but with nuclear physics .
The Los Alamos lab has a personal connection to the project , as many of its scientists contributed to the Trinity project in the 1940s . According to theUS Department of Energy , their work would ensure the US government that their plutonium bomb were efficacious . Less than a month after , a plutonium weapon system , ring Fat Man , was dropped on Nagasaki , Japan .
Watch footage from the blast :
[ Popular Mechanics ]
atomic physics
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