The Chinese Academy of Sciences recently announced that scientists had successfully fired superheated beams of a radioactive isotope of tantalum, a rare metal that can be added to warheads with potentially devastating consequences.
The experiment was carried out at the Institute of Modern Physics in Lanzhou in the north of the country, in part to “meet a critical strategic demand of China’s national defence,” researchers said.
Those responsible reportedly confirmed the project had potential military applications but would not elaborate.
At the centre of the physics experiment tantalum. The rare metal is used as a minor component in alloys and electronics but when you learn it’s named after Tantalus, a villain from Greek mythology, you know it must have some potentially nasty uses.
It is part of a group of heavy metals that could theoretically be added to a nuclear warhead to increase the release of radioactive fallout, causing lasting environmental contamination and rendering a large area uninhabitable in the near future.
Such a thing is known as a “salted bomb”.
These bombs can use elements like gold, cobalt or tantalum to produce a radioactive isotope that maximises the fallout hazard from the weapon rather than generating additional explosive force.
The term refers to the way such bombs are manufactured but also takes its name from the phrase “to salt the earth”, meaning to render the soil unable to host life for years to come.
No salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested, and as far as is publicly known none have ever been built, according to the online Nuclear Weapon Archive.
But some believe the new research by Chinese scientists could be applied to make such a bomb, or at least be used for other military applications such as shooting the tantalum beam at China’s own military equipment to test its durability in extreme events.
This potential prompted Hong Kong newspaper, the South China Morning Post, to hypothesise that China could be “rebooting a nuclear doomsday device”.
A US air force missile maintenance team removes the upper section of an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead. Picture: Airman John ParieSource:Reuters
It’s highly unlikely that a salted bomb is the end goal of its latest experiment, but two experts told the Post that they believe the experiments could be used for future military applications such as a laser-like device to achieve targeted damage.
Han Dejun, a professor of nuclear science and technology at Beijing Normal University, said of the tantalum accelerator experiment: “The most likely application that I can think of is in nuclear research.
“By generating a powerful beam of tantalum ions we can observe how the metal interacts with other elements and change form in high-speed collisions. It simulates what will happen in a real nuclear reaction.”
Beijing National Space Science Centre associate researcher Cai Minghui said: “In theory, the particle beam of a heavy element such as tantalum can be used as a directed energy weapon.”
Meanwhile a third expert from China’s Arms Control and Disarmament Association said the likelihood the research could lead to the Chinese Communist Party stockpiling salted bombs was “very low”……more here