Twenty years ago, I began to learn about plutonium-238, the isotope of plutonium used in space. I was familiar with plutonium-239, built up in nuclear power plants and used in nuclear weapons. My ...

Plutonium is not a fun word to speak, hear, or write. Used to depict an actinide metal we've known about for some time, it has become synonymous with human-caused destruction on a hard-to-comprehend ...

After 50 years of searching, physicists have spotted the fingerprint of radioactive plutonium, revealing the secrets of this complex molecule behind nuclear weapons. The researchers found the ...

On a tract of government land along the Savannah River in South Carolina, an army of workers is building one of the nation’s most ambitious nuclear enterprises in decades: a plant that aims to ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. The discovery of nuclear fission in ...

Explosive event: The upper side of the unit 3 reactor building at Fukushima Daiichi was damaged by a hydrogen explosion. This area housed the spent fuel pool and the fuel handling machines. (Courtesy: ...