Atomic Bomb
How an Atomic Bomb is created and what the Radioactive Material is?
An atomic bomb is an explosive device in which a large amount of energy is released through nuclear reactions. This makes an atomic bomb, more properly called a nuclear weapon, a much more powerful device than any conventional bomb containing chemical explosives. The two materials used to make an atomic bomb are uranium and plutonium. Uranium is a heavy metal, heavier than gold, and not only does it have the largest atoms of any natural element, the atoms that comprise Uranium have far more neutrons than protons. For all practical purposes, the one true element whose atoms can be split comparatively easily is the metal Uranium. Uranium's atoms are unusually large, henceforth; it is hard for them to hold together firmly. This makes Uranium-235 an exceptional candidate for nuclear fission. Uranium is not the only material used for making atomic bombs. Another material is the element Plutonium, in its isotope Pu-239. Plutonium is not found naturally and is always made from Uranium. The only way to produce Plutonium from Uranium is to process U-238 through a nuclear reactor. After a period of time, the intense radioactivity causes the metal to pick up extra particles, so that more and more of its atoms turn into Plutonium. Plutonium will not start a fast chain reaction by itself, but this difficulty is overcome by having a highly radioactive material that gives off neutrons faster than the Plutonium itself. In certain types of bombs, a mixture of the elements Beryllium and Polonium is used to bring about this reaction. Only a small piece is needed.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated at 5:30 a.m. The resulting implosion initiated a chain reaction of nearly 60 fission generations in about a micro-second. It produced an intense flash of light, followed by a fireball expanding to a diameter of about 600 meters in two seconds, and then it rose to...