February 20, 2005
On the day you were born, the universe did what it has always done best: transformed chaos into beauty.
Oklo: Ancient African Nuclear Reactors
Birthday · February 20, 2005
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APOD published February 20, 2005. Credit: Robert D. Loss, CEMS. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
The remnants of nuclear reactors nearly two billion years old were found in the 1970s in Africa. These reactors are thought to have occurred naturally. No natural reactors exist today, as the relative density of fissile uranium has now decayed below that needed for a sustainable reaction. Pictured above is Fossil Reactor 15, located in Oklo, Gabon. Uranium oxide remains are visible as the yellowish rock. Oklo by-products are being used today to probe the stability of the fundamental constants over cosmological time-scales and to develop more effective means for disposing of human-manufactured nuclear waste.
Image credit: Robert D. Loss, CEMS