Uranium is still there, it’s just sub-critical mass so the reaction isn’t happening. Uranium 235 (which would have powered the reaction) has a half life of ~700 million years. So there’s still probably a good bit of it there - the reaction is thought to have stopped about 1.7 billion years ago.
gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
Well but they’re not around anymore because the uranium inside them is all consumed by now, right?
bitwaba@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Uranium is still there, it’s just sub-critical mass so the reaction isn’t happening. Uranium 235 (which would have powered the reaction) has a half life of ~700 million years. So there’s still probably a good bit of it there - the reaction is thought to have stopped about 1.7 billion years ago.
gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
that makes sense, yeah