Filter News
Area of Research
News Topics
- (-) Space Exploration (4)
- (-) Summit (9)
- 3-D Printing/Advanced Manufacturing (26)
- Advanced Reactors (2)
- Artificial Intelligence (7)
- Big Data (5)
- Bioenergy (13)
- Biology (23)
- Biomedical (10)
- Biotechnology (5)
- Buildings (13)
- Chemical Sciences (7)
- Clean Water (8)
- Climate Change (11)
- Composites (6)
- Computer Science (30)
- Coronavirus (10)
- Critical Materials (4)
- Cybersecurity (5)
- Decarbonization (7)
- Energy Storage (22)
- Environment (39)
- Exascale Computing (2)
- Frontier (4)
- Fusion (8)
- Grid (11)
- High-Performance Computing (19)
- Isotopes (12)
- ITER (4)
- Machine Learning (1)
- Materials (32)
- Materials Science (22)
- Mathematics (1)
- Mercury (3)
- Microscopy (10)
- Nanotechnology (10)
- National Security (7)
- Net Zero (1)
- Neutron Science (18)
- Nuclear Energy (6)
- Physics (3)
- Polymers (5)
- Quantum Computing (5)
- Quantum Science (12)
- Security (3)
- Statistics (1)
- Sustainable Energy (35)
- Transportation (21)
Media Contacts
On Feb. 18, the world will be watching as NASA’s Perseverance rover makes its final descent into Jezero Crater on the surface of Mars. Mars 2020 is the first NASA mission that uses plutonium-238 produced at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
A better way of welding targets for Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s plutonium-238 production has sped up the process and improved consistency and efficiency. This advancement will ultimately benefit the lab’s goal to make enough Pu-238 – the isotope that powers NASA’s deep space missions – to yield 1.5 kilograms of plutonium oxide annually by 2026.
Since the 1930s, scientists have been using particle accelerators to gain insights into the structure of matter and the laws of physics that govern our world.