The plutonium atom has an atomic weight of 239, that being the combined number of neutrons and protons in the atomic nucleus.

The fission of one plutonium atom releases ten times more total energy than the fusion of one tritium atom.

There in that tiny space the plutonium atoms would have their electrons stripped away, an instantaneous rape.

The rocky material, he said, could aid the start of a chain reaction by slowing down speeding subatomic particles known as neutrons that fly out of plutonium atoms undergoing spontaneous decay.

The nucleus of a hydrogen atom is a single proton, for example, while the nucleus of a plutonium atom contains 94 protons.

When the new plutonium atom is hit again by a neutron, it splits and gives off energy.

This process is the opposite of fission, the process that powers conventional nuclear reactors; fission involves breaking apart heavy nuclei, like those of plutonium atoms.

The most common arrangement is for the so-called equatorial ligands to lie in a plane perpendicular to the O-Pu-O line and passing through the plutonium atom.

Plutonium(III) fluoride has the LaF structure where the coordination around the plutonium atoms is complex and usually described as tri-capped trigonal prismatic.

In a basic atom bomb, plutonium atoms are split, or fissioned, to release energy, but the fission can be promoted with a small amount of tritium because it has two extra atom-splitting neutrons.