Extraterrestrial Plutonium Atoms Turn Up on Ocean Bottom
The rare form of the element found on the Pacific seabed points to its violent birth in colliding stars.
The remnants of a supernova, center bottom in blue-green, near the Small Magellanic Cloud, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.Credit...NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) and J. Green (University of Colorado, Boulder)
May 13, 2021, 2:00 p.m. ET
Scientists studying a sample of oceanic crust retrieved from the Pacific seabed nearly a mile down have discovered traces of a rare isotope of plutonium, the deadly element that has been central to the atomic age.