Trinitite - a strange rock formed by a nuclear bomb
Trinitite is a glass-like material with an unusual structure, usually gray, green, and red, and is only formed during the explosion of a nuclear bomb.
Trinitite is usually gray green, and red. Photo: Steve Shop
If you want to create trinitite, one only needs a bucket of sand and the intense heat of a nuclear weapon, IFL Science reported on March 25. Scientists began to notice this special glass stone after dropping the first atomic bombs at the end of World War II. Experts later discovered that the material was even more exotic than they had thought.
Early in the morning of July 16, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb was detonated near the city of Alamogordo, in the dusty desert of New Mexico, creating a mushroom cloud 11,500 m high rising into the air. .
When investigating the site of the explosion, experts discovered a glass-like material never seen before. They called it trinitite after the detonation of the first atomic bomb, Trinity. In addition, this material is also known as Alamogordo glass. This material is mainly composed of silicate dioxide mixed with feldspar and molten quartz grains, scattered with other minerals such as calcite, hornblende, and augite.
Trinitite formed from molten sand due to the enormous amount of heat released by the bomb. It is estimated that the explosion raised the air temperature in the central region to about 4,982 degrees Celsius. The explosion blasted chunks of sand into the sky, cooked them in an atomic fireball, and then let them fall in the form of fire. liquid. When they reach the ground, they cool and form this glass-like material.
On July 16, 1945, the scene 12 seconds after the Trinity explosion. Photo: Los Alamos . National Laboratory
Trinitite can take on many colors such as gray, green, red. Experts believe that each color is caused by different materials in the bomb, as well as different radionuclides formed during detonation. Blue trinitite can form from bombshell material, while red trinitite can originate from copper wiring. Therefore, scientists once raised the idea of using trinitite as evidence to understand the composition and origin of nuclear bombs.
Similar molten glass materials can form spontaneously with other intensely energetic events, such as meteorites and lightning strikes, but trinitite is only produced by the explosion of an atomic bomb. It is considered mildly radioactive, but not enough to cause too much concern. Trinitite was even present at the site of the Trinity explosion in 2018, despite cleanup efforts by the US Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s.
Scientists recently discovered that trinitite has an extremely unusual atomic structure containing "forbidden" quasicrystals. A typical crystal is a material whose atoms are symmetrically arranged in a repeating periodic pattern. Meanwhile, quasicrystals have atoms that are still ordered but the pattern does not repeat. This creates a strange asymmetrical and non-repeating atomic structure, different from typical crystals, and is known as "forbidden symmetry".
Experts note that quasicrystals form from meteoric events and in the laboratory, but it seems the atomic explosion also generated enough power. When Israeli materials scientist Daniel Shechtman first identified quasicrystals in the 1980s, he was criticized and ridiculed. However, this discovery eventually earned him the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.