When Israeli aircraft recently struck a uranium-enrichment complex in the nation, Iran could have been days away from achieving “breakout,” the ability to quickly turn “yellowcake” uranium into ...

More common than gold, uranium is abundant on Earth. But less than one percent of the naturally occurring element is useful for nuclear power.

There are other uses of uranium apart from nuclear weapons as discussed in this article. Uranium is a silver-grey metal that is radioactive. The most common types are uranium 235 and uranium 238. The ...

Basically, an isotope is the same element but with a different mass. Unprocessed uranium is mostly uranium-238. It only contains approximately 0.7% uranium-235, the isotope that allows the most ...

Not that anyone asked, but uranium enrichment is certainly a newsworthy topic where a little science might be helpful. Here's ...

The U-bomb, say the educated guessers, gets much of its energy from uranium 238, the plentiful isotope of uranium that used to be considered inert and nonfissionable. In theory, such an explosion ...

Uranium (chemical symbol U) is a naturally occurring radioactive element. In its pure form it is a silver-coloured heavy metal, similar to lead, cadmium and tungsten. Like tungsten it is very dense, ...

U-238 decays very slowly or is barely radioactive, but the heat it produces is enough to warm Earth’s core. U-235 decays a bit faster or is more radioactive than U-238.

Natural uranium consists of 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235. Nuclear power reactors need the uranium fuel to contain 3-20% U-235, depending on the reactor design.

The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy laboratory The world’s most dangerous toy has been offered up for auction which includes a radioactive atomic energy kit with real uranium in time for Christmas .