Tag: Plutonium
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U.S. lab generates first space-grade plutonium sample since 1980s
File photo of a plutonium-238 pellet. Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory For the first time in nearly 30 years, the U.S. Department of Energy has produced a sample of plutonium-238, the radioactive isotope used to power deep space missions, good news for future NASA space probes heading to destinations starved of sunlight. The 50-gram (0.1-pound)…
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U.S. lab generates first space-grade plutonium sample since 1980s
File photo of a plutonium-238 pellet. Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory For the first time in nearly 30 years, the U.S. Department of Energy has produced a sample of plutonium-238, the radioactive isotope used to power deep space missions, good news for future NASA space probes heading to destinations starved of sunlight. The 50-gram (0.1-pound)…
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Uranus, Neptune in NASA’s sights for new robotic mission
NASA’s Voyager 2 mission captured this image of Uranus during its January 1986 flyby, the only encounter with the distant ice giant. Credit: NASA NASA has asked scientists to assess how to design and fly robotic space probes to Uranus and Neptune, the last of the solar system’s classical planets yet to be orbited, likely…