The Cassini Spacecraft is the Biggest Radioactive Dirty Bomb Ever Made and It’s About to Hit Saturn

No doubt incredible science has been done with the Cassini spacecraft. Enhancing the knowledge of our solar system. Yet there is a dark side to ending the Cassini mission by plunging it into Saturn. What will to happen to the nuclear fuel used to power the craft? An isotope called Plutonium 238 which is made from a by product of nuclear weapons manufacture and is very expensive to produce. Pu-238 has a half-life of 87.7 years. Plutonium 238 is enriched with 16% Plutonium 239 which has a half-life of 24,110 years.

Cassini is set to vaporize into Saturn’s atmosphere on September …read more