Is hafnium explosive?
The hafnium explosive could be extremely powerful. One gram of fully charged hafnium isomer could store more energy than 50 kilograms of TNT. Miniature missiles could be made with warheads that are far more powerful than existing conventional weapons, giving massively enhanced firepower to the armed forces using them.
Can gamma rays be used as weapon?
American military scientists are developing a weapon which kills by delivering an enormous burst of high-energy gamma rays, it is claimed today. The bomb, which produces little fallout, blurs the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons, and experts have already warned it could spark a new arms race.
What is hafnium used for?
Hafnium is a good absorber of neutrons and is used to make control rods, such as those found in nuclear submarines. It also has a very high melting point and because of this is used in plasma welding torches. Hafnium has been successfully alloyed with several metals including iron, titanium and niobium.
How many isotopes does hafnium have?
Natural hafnium is a mixture of six stable isotopes: hafnium-174 (0.2 percent), hafnium-176 (5.2 percent), hafnium-177 (18.6 percent), hafnium-178 (27.1 percent), hafnium-179 (13.7 percent), and hafnium-180 (35.2 percent).
Are gamma rays used in nuclear bombs?
The gamma rays are therefore specific to the atomic bomb and are completely absent in T.N.T. explosions.
Are there gamma ray lasers?
A gamma-ray laser, or graser, is a hypothetical device that would produce coherent gamma rays, just as an ordinary laser produces coherent rays of visible light. In his 2003 Nobel lecture, Vitaly Ginzburg cited the gamma-ray laser as one of the thirty most important problems in physics.
Do nuclear bombs emit gamma rays?
The release of radiation is a phenomenon unique to nuclear explosions. There are several kinds of radiation emitted; these types include gamma, neutron, and ionizing radiation, and are emitted not only at the time of detonation (initial radiation) but also for long periods of time afterward (residual radiation).
Does the US military have a death ray?
Yes, Death Rays. Lasers will help older fighters stay alive while flying the deadly skies. The U.S. Air Force is working with Lockheed Martin to deploy lasers on fighter jets by 2025. The TALWS program will allow fighter jets to shoot down incoming missiles.
Can you survive gamma radiation?
Certainly, a gamma-ray burst could affect life’s DNA, causing genetic damage long after the burst is over. If such a thing happened in Earth’s history, it could well have altered the evolution of life on our planet. The good news is that Earth being blasted by a GRB is a pretty unlikely event.
Are gamma ray lasers possible?
Why is hafnium used in nuclear reactors?
The nuclei of several hafnium isotopes can each absorb multiple neutrons. This makes hafnium a good material for use in the control rods for nuclear reactors. Its neutron-capture cross-section is about 600 times that of zirconium.
Is there a nuclear isomer of hafnium?
However, so far the nuclear isomer exists only at low concentrations (<0.1%), within multi-isotopic hafnium. One gram of this material has about 1.33 megajoules of energy, about an order of magnitude better than compressed hydrogen. All energy released would be in the form of photons; X-rays and gamma rays.
What is the hafnium controversy?
The hafnium controversy is a debate over the possibility of ‘triggering’ rapid energy releases, via gamma ray emission, from a nuclear isomer of hafnium, 178m2Hf. The energy release is potentially 5 orders of magnitude (100,000 times) more energetic than a chemical reaction, but 2 orders of magnitude less than a nuclear fission reaction.
What is the radioactivity of 178m2 HF?
The half-life of 178m2 Hf is 31 years or 1 Gs (gigasecond, 1,000,000,000 seconds), so that a gram’s natural radioactivity is 2.40 TBq (65 Ci). The activity is in a cascade of penetrating gamma rays, the most energetic of which is 0.574 MeV. Substantial shielding would be needed for human safety if the sample were to be one gram of the pure isomer.