Thorium is named after Thor, the Scandinavian god of war.

Jöns Jacob Berzelius

Thorium was discovered by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, a Swedish chemist, in 1828. When bombarded with neutrons, thorium-232 becomes thorium-233, which eventually decays into uranium-233 through a series of beta decays. Uranium-233 is a fissionable material and can be used as a nuclear fuel.

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All Uranium metal has the same hardness. There are a number of different ways of measuring hardness. The depleted uranium kinetic energy penetrator is a DU-titanium alloy. This report compares the hardness of different U-titanium alloys.

Only the US and the UK have acknowledged using DU weapons. In a three-week period of conflict in Iraq during 2003, it was estimated that between 1,000 and 2,000 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions were used. More than 300,000 DU rounds were fired during the 2003 war, the vast majority by US troops.

SILVER BULLET made from depleted uranium can pierce even the heaviest armor. Uranium shells burn away at the edges upon impact¿a “self-sharpening” that helps them bore into armor. Used as ammunition, it penetrates the thick steel encasing enemy tanks; used as armor, it protects troops against attack.

Depleted uranium is (almost) as dense as tungsten and has an added advantage – from a military perspective – that it burns at the extreme temperatures generated as you punch your way through steel tank armour. It sounds bizarre but, in the world of warfare, tungsten is the eco-friendly alternative.

Diamond is the hardest substance found on earth in so many natural forms, and it is an allotrope of carbon. The hardness of diamond is the highest level of Mohs hardness – grade 10. Its microhardness is 10000kg/mm2, which is 1,000 times higher than quartz and 150 times higher than corundum.

A super-hard metal has been made in the laboratory by melting together titanium and gold. The alloy is the hardest known metallic substance compatible with living tissues, say US physicists.

god of war

Thorium was discovered by Jöns Jacob Berzelius in 1828, in Stockholm, Sweden after he received a sample of an unusual black mineral from Hans Esmark found on an island close to Brevik, Norway.

Australia has the highest thorium resources with 489,000 tons followed by the US with 400,000 tons, Turkey with 344,000 tons and India with 319,000 tons. The remaining resources are found in countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Norway, Egypt, Russia, among others.

Thorium is safer and more efficient to mine than uranium, thus making it more environmentally friendly. [5] The percentage of thorium found in its ore is generally greater than the percentage of uranium found in its ore, so it is more cost-efficient.

Kazakhstan

In space Uranium is formed naturally occurring in supernovas. In fact estimate place the Earth’s supply of Uranium at 30 times that of Silver. This is because Uranium can be found in topsoil anywhere on the planet as well as in the mantle.

Because uranium decays by alpha particles, external exposure to uranium is not as dangerous as exposure to other radioactive elements because the skin will block the alpha particles. Ingestion of high concentrations of uranium, however, can cause severe health effects, such as cancer of the bone or liver.

Inhaled plutonium can land in the lungs, where it can lead to cancer, but it—and any that is ingested—can also find its way into the blood stream where it is slowly absorbed into the body. New details about this toxic process are now emerging.

You can support Foreign Policy by becoming a subscriber. 5 grams of plutonium to die immediately, compared to about . 1 grams of cyanide. The plutonium at Fukushima isn’t in the air, but inhaling about 20 milligrams of plutonium would probably kill you within a few months. External exposure carries almost no risk.