Comment on Americium: How a small element could power the next century of space exploration

mercano@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• General_Effort@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Yes. And also:

  Its half-life is a staggering 432 years, five times longer than plutonium-238.

  Cringe…

  AI slop?

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  • settxy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Cringe…

    AI slop?

    Plutonium-238’s half-life is 87.7 years, Americium-241 is 432.6 years. Which… is almost 5 times longer, so… not sure why that’s cringe?

    With an atomic number of 241, it’s hardly small.

    I believe they’re referring to the fact that it’s not an element of major topic. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of it.

    I think this could be compelling given that tech continues to get more power efficient. I don’t know the numbers, but if we were to launch the same tech that’s on Voyager 1/2 today, would we be able to do that with 1/5 the power? If so, those probes could likely still have all their instruments running if they used Americium.

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    • phutatorius@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      “Small” meaning “author of article seldom thought of it before.”

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