New Findings from a Study About the “Trinity” Nuclear Test

By: Caroline Yao

It’s July 16, 1945. A bomb is set off in the middle of a desert in New Mexico. J. Robert Oppenheimer and the other researchers who watch the explosion don’t know much about their bomb, nor do they expect what follows their test run.

When the bomb, code named “Trinity,” detonated, the mushroom cloud rocketed 50,000 to 70,000 feet in the air, much higher than the scientists predicted. According to a newly-released study, in only ten days after the detonation, the cloud and radioactive fallout crossed 46 states and reached Canada and Mexico.

“It’s a huge finding and, at the same time, it shouldn’t surprise anyone,” said Sébastien Philippe, lead author of the study. The study also collected information about nuclear fallout from 93 Nevada atomic tests, and made a map that shows the composite deposition of radioactive material across the U.S.

The exact amount of fallout that remains at the Trinity test site is still unknown, according to Suza Alzner, another author of the study.

The aftermath of the Trinity test was underestimated, due to a lack of knowledge about radioactive materials. Manhattan Project physicists and doctors observed the drift of the implosion cloud and predicted that there would be radioactive hazards, but only in the nearby area. They had been preparing for a low amount of fallout to spread over a large group of people.

Crucial data was lost in the following years, because the U.S. never had any national monitoring stations to observe the fallout from the Trinity test. Beginning in 1951, scientists were able to estimate fallout from atomic tests. But reanalyzing Trinity was now only slightly less difficult.

In March, researchers made a huge discovery. Alzner and Megan Smith, a co-founder of Shift7 and former Obama administration technology officer, were told by Gilbert P. Compo, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado and the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, that the European Center for Weather Forecasts had released historical data covering weather patterns 30,000 feet in the atmosphere. In other words, they actually received legitimate data about the weather from 1945, when the Trinity test took place.

Then, with the help of new data and software, Philippe reanalyzed Trinity’s fallout. The results show that New Mexico was affected to a great extent. In some places, radionuclide deposition was the same as in Nevada. Trinity’s fallout was the cause of about 90 percent of deposition in New Mexico, the state with the fifth highest rate of deposition per county.

The study also showed notable deposition in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, and Idaho.

“This new information about the Trinity bomb is monumental and a long time coming,” said Tina Cordova, a co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. “We’ve been waiting for an affirmation of the histories told by generations of people from Tularosa who witnessed the Trinity bomb and talked about how the ash fell from the sky for days afterward.”

Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/science/trinity-nuclear-test-atomic-bomb-oppenheimer.html