Einsteinium was discovered by Manhattan Project nuclear scientist Albert Ghiorso in the fallout from the detonation of the hydrogen bomb known as Ivy Mike in 1952. Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
On Nov. 1, 1952, a team of American scientists working for the U.S. military threw the switch on a strange three-story structure codenamed Ivy Mike. It was the world s first hydrogen bomb, a new breed of nuclear weapon that was 700 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
The bomb test took place on a tiny atoll named Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific. When Ivy Mike was detonated, it released 10.4 megatons of explosive power, roughly the equivalent of 10.4 million sticks of TNT. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, for comparison, produced just 15 kilotons (15,000 sticks of TNT).
Scientists Make 1st Measurements Of Highly Radioactive Element Einsteinium indiatimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from indiatimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The organic ligand 3,4,3-LI(1,2-HOPO) forms an Es(III) coordination complex, enabling structural and spectroscopic studies
Discovered in the debris after the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, einsteinium is a highly radioactive actinide. As it doesn’t occur on Earth naturally, little is known about its chemistry beyond the fact that it forms a few halide and oxide salts. Making more than just trace amounts of it means bombarding lighter elements with neutrons for a prolonged period of time – a process that can only be done at one place in the world, the high flux isotope reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, US.