This Is How Humanity’s First Nuclear Explosion Created A New, Radioactive Mineral
At the Trinity test site in New Mexico, the radioactive substance “Trinitite” can still be found today.
On July 16, 1945, humanity carried out the very first successful atomic bomb test at the Trinity site in the desert of New Mexico. This plutonium-based device used an implosion-based design, which was replicated for the Fat Man bomb that was detonated a few months later over Nagasaki. Despite the fact that the massive device weighed about 5 tons, only a few pounds (or kilograms) was fissile material; the overwhelming majority was either the thick steel armor and case, as well as the high explosives surrounding the plutonium core designed to detonate the nuclear bomb.
The explosion resulted in an unprecedented release of energy: the equivalent of some 20,000 tons of TNT. Even though it was detonated from the top of a high tower, the blast created a crater between 5–8 feet (1.6–2.4 meters) deep. And all around the land, a new type of mineral never-before created on Earth was created: trinitite. Here’s how it happened.
