Found the oldest weapons-grade plutonium

American physicists have identified the first weapon-grade plutonium ever produced on Earth. A sample of Pu-239 was found at a military landfill of radioactive waste near the “nuclear” town Hanford (Washington, DC) founded in 1943. About 400 ml of plutonium was stored in a large metal bottle inside a rusted safe (the bottle is in the photo on the right).

This sample was obtained as part of the Manhattan project in December 1944, seven months before the very first nuclear test in history ( Trinity experiment, July 16, 1945, three weeks after which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were). It is strange that this material did not go to the bombs, but was kept in a safe.

In general, a sample dated 1942 is considered to be the very first plutonium.
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More photos under a habrakat.

A corroded safe was discovered by chance in 2004, during excavation work to clean up the area.



He was taken under the fence and searched the archives to find out the origin of the artifact. It turned out that in 1951 the safe was taken to landfill due to radioactive radiation.



A preliminary analysis of Pu-239 clearly showed that plutonium was obtained at the X-10 reactor in Tennessee.



Plutonium from this reactor was used at Hanford only once, during the ceremonial launch of the processing plant on December 9, 1944. Later on, plutonium obtained directly at the plant was used.



All the evidence indicated that plutonium found in the bottle was one of the first Pu-239 samples. So it turned out.



via New Scientist