Trinitite
Trinitite is the name of an artificial glass that was first discovered during the first atomic bomb explosion on July 16, 1945 - the so-called Trinity test - on the US Trinity test site in southern New Mexico .
description
Trinitit consists of the silicate substrate ( sand ) on the test site that melted and solidified again at the high temperatures of the explosion . A more recent hypothesis states that the material from which the trinitite was made did not melt on the ground after the explosion, but was sucked into the fireball from the ground, rained down from the sky and solidified there again.
The greenish color of the trinitite comes from melted iron ions . In contrast to the petrologically similar fulgurites and tektites , this glass is not a rock because it is not a naturally formed solid. Trinitit is a very weakly radioactive alpha emitter .
The counterpart, which was created during the first Russian atomic bomb explosion (1949) on the test site near Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan , is called Charitontschik ( Russian харитончик ).
use
In the beginning, Trinitit pieces were still sold to collectors. In the meantime, the area has been leveled and is no longer accessible.
In 2015, the American artist Trevor Paglen used a piece of trinitite inside his work of art Trinity Cube . The outer part of the 20 × 20 cm cube was made of glass from the restricted zone around the Fukushima power plant . The work of art was placed in the exclusion zone as part of the Don't Follow the Wind exhibition .
literature
- FM Szasz: The Day the Sun Rose Twice: The Story of the Trinity Site Nuclear Explosion, July 16, 1945 . University of New Mexico Press, 1984.
Web links
Individual evidence
- Jump up ↑ PP Parekh, TM Semkow, MA Torres, DK Haines, JM Cooper, PM Rosenberg and ME Kitto: Radioactivity in Trinitite six decades later . In: Journal of Environmental Radioactivity . 85, No. 1, 2006, pp. 103-120. doi : 10.1016 / j.jenvrad.2005.01.017 . PMID 16102878 .
- ↑ Tiernan Morgan: Art Movements , October 2, 2015, hyperallergic.com, accessed on July 2, 2016. (English, with photo of the work of art)
- ↑ Trinity Cube on Trevor Paglen's website , paglen.com, accessed on July 2, 2016. (English, with photo of the work of art)