Nuclear bomb debris holds clues to who planted it

Nuclear bomb debris holds clues to who planted it

www.newscientis t.com

Suppose that a terrorist group manages to get hold of nuclear material, make a bomb and set it off in a city centre somewhere. Will the fragments that are left leave clues to who did it, or where the fissile material came from? Tests on residues from the world's first nuclear explosion suggest they might.

If someone launches a nuclear missile attack, tracking systems should quickly pinpoint where it was fired from. But if the attackers did not have access to a missile, and delivered the bomb by truck, say, its origins would be harder to trace.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Hello ATS, I don’t like to be a fear monger but this article sure sounds like conditioning to me. The article goes on to talk about research by German scientists that links to this article that is dated 19/03/09 – so why bring this up now and pitch it like this?

The method is an in depth detailed analysis of the bomb site looking for certain chemicals and amongst other things the ratio of one chemical to another.

On another note, is it not a shame that this kind of detailed scientific analysis never took place at certain other “bomb” sites


www.newscientis t.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by android


Hey there Android I had the exact same feeling as I read the article, although the source was the BBC. Anyone who knows a bit about the subject will know they have been able to do this for some time, the nuclear signature of a bomb has been discussed many times in the past, so you raise an important question, why bring it up now?

www.bbc.co.uk...

Now, many consider the threat of a nuclear attack by terrorists to be very real. Such an attack could potentially wipe out whole cities.

But if someone does ever undertake such an attack, could the culprits behind the bomb ever be found?

The current study's lead author Albert Fahey, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist) in Gaithersburg, US, seems to think so.

Iran did it... Case closed?

reply to post by android
They can measure isotopes and ratios, but the question is, can they really use that information to trace the source? That's addressed in the OP article partially:

Metals are traded internationally, so knowing only where material in a bomb was mined would not necessarily tell you where a tamper was built or who constructed it, warns Tom Bielefeld of Harvard University, who studies nuclear security.

And we probably don't have a sample if the fissile material from Iran (or some other countries) to compare the signature against.

The problem is a little analogous to getting the DNA analyzed from the rape victim, if you have a sample of DNA from the suspect you might be able to match it, but you don't always have a sample from the suspect and since some countries nuclear programs are secretive, we might not have a sample to match from them.

And as the Harvard guy says, the non-radioactive metals can be mined anywhere, so the location of the mine doesn't necessarily imply the origin of the bomb.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Thanks for the analogy Arbitrageur.

The science did go over my head a bit, and you have made it much clearer for me

Alright! Another story by NIST
It's a stupid pen name but whoever they are they write the best fiction (even if it's a tad unbelievable).
You guys hear the one about the 19 arabs?