Researchers describe how natural reactor worked
To operate a nuclear power plant like Three Mile Island, hundreds of highly trained employees must work in concert to generate power from safe fission, all the while containing dangerous nuclear wastes. On the other hand, it’s been known for 30 years that Mother Nature once did nuclear chain reactions by her lonesome. Now, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have analyzed the isotopic structure of noble gases produced in fission in a sample from the only known natural nuclear chain reaction site in the world in Gabon, Wes Africa, and have found how she does the trick.