NEI Nuclear Notes

When I think of a meteorite, it’s usually the one that hits Earth at the beginning of The War of the Worlds (1953). In that movie, you start with this: And end up with this: The meteorite that flew over Russia today provided some very striking videos itself, minus Martians and heat rays. This video shows both the tail and and the air burst, complete with shattering glass and a lot of car alarms going off: The title means Explosion in Chelyabinsk. Naturally, we were curious about the nuclear plants in the region. The closest to where many of the videos were taken is also called Chelyabinsk, about 140 miles distant, but it looks as though Rosatom , the Russian nuclear authority, got more questions about Mayak, which is not a reactor but a reprocessing plant . Russia’s state-run atomic agency, Rosatom, said there were no damage to the nuclear facilities in the region and all operations continued as usual. Mayak nuclear plant -- one of the largest nuclear facilities of Ro...