Partially-reflected-plutonium-sphere.jpeg

Summary

Description A sphere of plutonium surrounded by neutron-reflecting blocks of tungsten carbide. A re-creation of the August 21, 1945 criticality accident at Los Alamos to measure the radiation produced when an extra block was added, making the mass supercritical.
Date
Source From LANL's report on criticality accidents, 2000, http://www.csirc.net/docs/reports/la-13638.pdf PDF at http://www.csirc.net/library/la_13638.shtml
Author Los Alamos National Laboratory
Permission
( Reusing this file )
© This image comes from Los Alamos National Laboratory , a national laboratory privately operated under contract from the United States Department of Energy by Los Alamos National Security, LLC between October 1, 2007 and October 31, 2018. LANL allowed anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted. LANL requires the following text be used when crediting images to it: ( link )

Unless otherwise indicated, this information has been authored by an employee or employees of the Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this information. The public may copy and use this information without charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies. Neither the Government nor LANS makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of this information.

Captions

Sphere of plutonium surrounded by neutron-reflecting blocks of tungsten carbide.

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

plutonium

inception

2 October 1945

MIME type

image/jpeg