Trinity detonation

First atomic device, Trinity," detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico by the Manhattan Engineer restrict of the Army Corps of Engineers (Manhattan Project). 

The United States first tested its nuclear bomb capabilities in a desert-region of New Mexico on July 16, 1945. When the atomic bomb was detonated, a huge crater formed. The heat from the plutonium-based bomb melted the desert sands, which then solidified, forming a glassy residue. The resulting mineral (pictured here) was named trinitite after the site (named Trinity) of the test. IMAGE COPYRIGHT 2009, STEVE SHOUP. USED UNDER LICENSE FROM SHUTTERSTOCK.COM,... 

In the spring of 1945, preparations began in the Pacific for the use of the atomic bomb. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered, and the project was then focused solely on Japan. On July 16, 1945, a test device code-named Gadget was detonated at the Alamogordo Bombing Range in New Mexico as part of Project Trinity, the first explosion of a nuclear weapon. The success of the first test of a nuclear weapon was a testament to the ability of the leadership of the Manhattan Project to carry out an unprecedented industrial project, with the world s most talented scientists... 

Soils may become contaminated from fallout associated with nuclear weapons tests, such as those conducted at the Trinity Site in southern New Mexico, the Pacific Proving Ground at the Enewetak Atoll, and the Nevada Test Site or with accidental, non-nuclear detonation of nuclear weapons, such as occurred at Palomares, Spain. Research facilities, such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, may release treated radioactive wastes under controlled conditions. Production facilities, such as the Hanford and Savannah River Plants and experimental reactor stations, for example, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho, also released treated plutonium-bearing radioactive wastes under controlled conditions to soils (Hanson 1975). 

The success of the Trinity test meant that a second type of atomic bomb could be readied for use against Japan. In addition to the uranium gun model, which was not tested prior to being used in combat, the plutonium implosion device detonated at Trinity now figured in American Far Eastern strategy. In the end Little Boy, the untested uranium bomb, was dropped first at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, while the plutonium weapon Fat Man followed three days later at Nagasaki on August 9. 

Tessmer, Carl F., and Daniel Brown. Carcinoma of the Skin in Bovine Exposed to Radioactive Fallout. Journal of the American Medical Association 170 (1962) 210-14. [A report of an animal exposed to radioactive fallout on the range near Alamogordo in July 1945 following the detonation of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site.]... 

The world s first ever site of a nuclear detonation (July 1945 at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, NM) was revisited decades later, and samples were collected for detailed analysis to investigate the potential of postdetonation analysis for accurate source attribution (Fahey et al. 2010 Bellucci et al. 2013). Although the Gadget (the code name given to the first test device) consisted of a plutonium core, detailed isotopic analysis of the uranium in trinitite (the glassy material formed by melting... 

In searching for new explosives one is most concerned with performance (detonation velocity and pressure), thermal properties, and sensitivity. Whether a new candidate explosive is ultimately widely used may well be determined by other factors, such as cost, toxicity, melting point, etc., but the initial research effort is guided by the trinity of performance, thermal stability, and sensitivity. This presents a difficult multifactoral problem in assessing the various molecular properties that contribute to each of these principal selection criteria. For instance, detonation velocity is affected by density, elemental composition, and heat of formation. These factors must be varied together in such a way as to maximize the combined effect on performance. 

GADGET. The first successful detonation of a nuclear device took place at 5 29 45 a.m. Mountain War Time, 16 July 1945, at the Trinity Test Site, New Mexico. The spherically shaped device, about six feet in diameter, weighed five tons but exploded with a blast of about 20,000 tons TNT-equivalent (20 kilotons). Scientists working on the Manhattan Project had named the device Gadget. It was an implosion device, with plutonium as the nuclear explosive. One similar in design, nicknamed Fat Man, would be dropped over Nagasaki, Japan, on 9 August 1945. See also BIG BROTHER LITTLE BOY. 

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