I’ve been researching nuclear energy and radiation in an effort to understand it. I don’t understand why I’m seeing a lot of info saying a nuclear bomb’s radiation dies out in about 10 years, but a nuclear reactor explosion like Chernobyl will take thousands of years. What’s the difference?
EDIT: Okay, so what I’m seeing is I didn’t account for the differences in types and sheer amounts of fuel for each kind of reaction. I’m not a chemist or physicist or anything. I just like learning stuff. 😁
These explanations make a lot of sense, so to those of you who didn’t answer the wrongway and provided helpful and educational responses, thank you.
In: Chemistry
The nucluear bomb is a fision explosion and the stuff left behind are atoms resulting from uranium split in two. So these smaller atoms are usually less radioactive.
A nuclear reactor explosion is usually partial fision combined with other explosive materials such as hydrogen gas, and high energy particles from nuclear reactions. The stuff left behind contain a lot of the original nuclear fuel with is enrichted uranium. Radioactive decay of uranium involves many nuclear reactions that gradually result in smaller and smaller atoms left behind. This is a process that can take thousands of years.
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