NASA researchers are testing to use nuclear battery to increase the life of future spacecraft to four centuries Space is ...

The Trump administration plans to make available about 20 metric tons of Cold War-era plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads to U.S. power companies as a potential fuel for reactors, according to ...

It’s widely known that a smoke detector is a good ionizing radiation source, as they contain a small amount of americium-241, a side product of nuclear reactors. But what about other sources? [Carl ...

Spacecraft have used a plutonium isotope to stay afloat for decades, but another isotope could last even longer.

Democratic U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump to cancel a plan to make surplus plutonium from Cold War-era atomic bombs available as a fuel for nuclear power operators, saying ...

After a 25-year hiatus, the Unites States has produced its first non-weapons grade plutonium needed to power space probes when solar energy won’t suffice. NASA has been using a radioactive material ...

Plutonium can be used to make nuclear bombs. But it can also be recycled and used as a fuel in nuclear reactors. According to the authors of a Nature editorial, the UK—which has the largest civilian ...

A team of scientists has discovered a new, stable form of plutonium – and done so by accident. The famously unstable element is tricky to transport, store and dispose of, but the find could lead to ...

Reporting from Richland, Wash. — As crews demolished a shuttered nuclear weapons plant during 2017 in central Washington, specks of plutonium were swept up in high gusts and blown miles across a ...

I’m as happy as anyone that the Curiosity rover got to Mars; it’s hard not to root for all those NASA geeks in their blue polo shirts. But before you get all American and apple pie about the ...

It appears that the U.S.'s plutonium-238 shortage is coming an end. The radioisotope is crucial for fueling long-term deep space missions, but as of 2017, a shortage was on the horizon. But ...