Natural Nuclear Fission Reactor

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

by bo0tzz • 7 years ago

60 16 7 years ago

I wonder to what extent mutations produced by the radiation from this reactor accelerated the evolution of life.

brohee• 7 years ago

It was first discussed here today in the context of fungu using radio synthesis https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20342750

saagarjha• 7 years ago

Most background radiation comes from Potassium and Radon: I'm not sure how much of an impact this one reactor might have had.

new_realist2• 7 years ago

If there were an "optimal" amount of radiation for evolution at particular stages, you could imagine that this reactor, which offers a spectrum of radiation from "really bad" to "optimal" to "background" (depending on distance) would be useful. Lifeforms at the optimal distance from the reactor would evolve at a greater rate.

k__• 7 years ago

I read about this years ago and my first thought was, are there any lifeforms using this power in some way?

The radiosynthesis fungi seem to do so, haha

ajross• 7 years ago

Oklo was critical 1.7B years ago. Definitely no fungi.

JoeDaDude• 7 years ago

I had heard about the natural reactor before, but this Wikipedia article was my first exposure to the hypothesis that the Moon originated from an explosion in a natural fission reactor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...

Ididntdothis• 7 years ago

How could such a reactor explode? I thought you need pretty high pressure to get a chain reaction for an explosion.

jhh• 7 years ago

Well, tell me comrade, how could it explode?

wysifnwyg• 7 years ago

What leads you to believe that high pressure could not be reached?

sandworm101• 7 years ago

Explosion isn't the real difficulty imho. Even if there was an explosion sufficient to loft a moon's worth of material into space, how did it obtain sufficient orbital velocity to stay in space?

An explosion big enough to crack the planet into two chunks is one thing, the series of carefully timed explosions necessary to start those chunks spinning nicely around each other is totally different.

ttsda• 7 years ago

If you have the fission happening surrounded by rock, it can indeed get to very high temperatures and pressure, and after the rock gives and the hot material comes in contact with water, pressure will rise very rapidly.

m463• 7 years ago

It's hogwash. The moon would not have sprung off into earth orbit.

It would have exited the solar system and be flung out across the galaxy starring Martin Landau and Barbara Bain.

X6S1x6Okd1st• 7 years ago

Origin of the Moon hypothesis section is awesome.

Natural Nuclear Fission Reactor

Related Stories