Jakarta –
In July 1945, when J. Robert Oppenheimer and other researchers who are members of the The Manhattan Project preparing to test the world’s first atomic bomb in the desert of New Mexico, they may not have thought how powerful the impact of the explosion was and how the technology turned into a weapon of mass destruction.
When a plutonium detonation device was mounted on top of a 30-meter-tall metal tower during a test code-named Trinity, the resulting explosion was much more powerful than expected. The appearance of a giant luminous mushroom-shaped cloud also reaches the atmosphere many times higher than previously thought, which is around 15 thousand meters – 21 meters.
Where did the impact from the explosion go? A new study released Thursday (20/7) before being submitted to a scientific journal for peer review, shows that the mushroom cloud’s impact and fall was much more distant than scientists on the Manhattan Project had imagined in 1945.
Using advanced modeling software and historical weather data, the study authors say that radioactive fallout from the Trinity test reached 46 Canadian and Mexican states within 10 days of the explosion.
“This is a major finding and, at the same time, it shouldn’t surprise anyone,” said the study’s lead author, Sébastien Philippe, researcher and scientist at Princeton University’s Science and Global Security Program. The New York Times.
The study also re-analyzed the fallout from 93 US atomic bomb tests at a site in Nevada and created a map depicting the composite deposition of radioactive materials throughout the US adjacent to the area. The team also hopes that in the future they will be able to study US atomic bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean.
“How much fallout impact Trinity those still remaining in original depositional sites across the country are difficult to quantify,” said Susan Alzner, study author and co-founder of Shift7, an organization that coordinated the study’s research.
The study documents the deposition of radioactive material when it first hit the ground in 1945. “It’s like a picture frozen in time,” he says.
Estimated radionuclide deposition density for the first 10 days after the Trinity test detonation on July 16, 1945, 05:29 local time. Photo: Sébastien Philippe, Susan Alzner, Gilbert P. Compo, Mason Grimshaw, Megan Smith
Mushroom Cloud Impact
These findings can be cited by advocates who list the number of people eligible for federal government compensation for having been exposed to radiation from a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere.
The cloud coverage of the impact of the Trinity test was monitored by physicists and doctors at the Manhattan Project. But they underestimated its reach. “They were aware that there was a radioactive hazard, but they were only concerned with the acute risk in the immediate vicinity of the explosion site,” said Alex Wellerstein, nuclear historian at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.
According to Wellerstein, they have little understanding of how radioactive materials can become embedded in ecosystems, both near and far. “They don’t really think about the effects of low doses on large populations, which is the problem of falling exposure to atomic bombs,” he said.
At that time, Dr. Stafford L. Warren, a physician The Manhattan Project who specializes in nuclear medicine, reported to Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project, that clouds from the Trinity explosion remained high over the northeastern corner of the test site for several hours.
Different levels of the mushroom cloud can be seen spreading and moving in different directions. But Warren convinced General Groves that measuring the range of the cloud’s spread could be done later.
“In the following decades, the lack of critical data has made it difficult to assess and study the range of trials Trinity. The US didn’t have a national monitoring station in 1945 to track those impacts,” Philippe said.
In addition, important historical weather and atmospheric data became available only from 1948 onwards. Reconstructing the impact of the atomic bomb test in Nevada in 1951 is easier. Unfortunately, re-analyzing the impact of the Trinity test is difficult due to a lack of data.
“The data sets for the Nevada test and the available data that we might be able to find for Trinity are incomparable. We can’t put them in the same light. So we decided to keep pushing on this,” Alzner said.
Determined to fill the void, the research team began the study about 18 months ago. Philippe has an extensive background in radiation fallout modeling and is the author of a similar project in 2021 documenting the effects of a French nuclear test.
Meanwhile, Alzner and Megan Smith, another co-founder of Shift7 and former Chief Technology Officer in US President Barack Obama’s administration, contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There, Gilbert P. Compo, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado and NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory told the team that the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast, a week earlier released historical data that charted weather patterns extending 9,000 meters or higher above the Earth’s surface.
“For the first time, we have the most accurate hourly weather reconstruction since 1940, worldwide. Every airborne event, whatever it may be, is now trackable, hourly,” said Compo, who was a co-author of the study.
Using data and new software created by NOAA, Philippe then re-analyzes Trinity’s fall. While the study authors acknowledge the limitations and uncertainties in their calculations, they argue that their estimates are likely to remain conservatively low.
“This is a very comprehensive and well-executed study,” said MV Ramana, professor from the University of British Columbia, who was not involved in the study.
Ramana was not surprised by the research findings about Trinity. “I hope old estimates understate what’s actually being stored,” he said.
Next: Poor and Sad New Mexican Citizens
(rns/rns)
2023-07-21 11:15:31
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