Sniffing out the nuclear threat
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February 13, 2013 |
I was worried by the news yesterday that North Korea has carried out another nuclear test. But no-one seems to know much about this latest detonation.
Nuclear scientists hope they might be able to find out more by sniffing out xenon gas given off by the blast. They think they can detect if the bomb was made of plutonium or uranium.
It’s really important to find out. If it was a uranium bomb it’s likely North Korea is manufacturing the nuclear material and could make many more bombs in the future.
This story appears in the 12 February 2013 issue of the journal Nature.
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The blast was set off 1 kilometre underground, so there is no guarantee the scientists will detect any gas particles from it.
Image: Flickr/Vince_Lamb
