Any fission reactor basically works the same. An unstable atom like uranium or plutonium breaks apart, creating fast neutrons. There’s a chance some of those neutrons will strike nearby unstable ...

Plutonium pits are hollow spheres that cause the nuclear explosion of these deadly weapons. Usually, a chemical explosion ...

Once detonated, the explosives condense the plutonium surrounding the case so intensely that it triggers a fission reaction. The transition from “atomic” to “thermonuclear” designation ...

is the spent fuel from the fission reaction. These consist of roughly 3% waste isotopes, 1% plutonium isotopes, and 96% uranium isotopes. This waste is high in transuranic elements, which have ...

Each fission reaction releases a huge amount of energy ... which converts long-lived nuclear waste (the minor actinides plus, if desired, plutonium) into short-term non-fissile waste that can ...

By the end of the year the physicist Werner Heisenberg had calculated that nuclear fission chain reactions might be ... into "element 94," now called plutonium. Like uranium 235, element 94 ...

But the neutrons are much more likely to trigger new fission events if ... in breeding weapons-grade plutonium from common uranium. In a heavy-water nuclear reactor, when neutrons bombard U ...