NASA is running out of the special kind of plutonium needed to power deep space probes, worrying planetary scientists who say the USA urgently needs to restart production of plutonium-238.
But it's unclear whether Congress will provide the $30 million that the administration requested earlier this year for the Department of Energy to get a new program going.
Nuclear weapons use plutonium-239, but NASA depends on something quite different: plutonium-238. A marshmallow-sized pellet of plutonium-238, encased in metal, gives off a lot of heat. Click here to read the rest at npr.
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