How the Trinity Test Quasicrystal Formed During the World’s First Nuclear Explosion
Nature World News | 12.05.2026 17:19
When scientists detonated the world's first atomic bomb during the Trinity Test in July 1945, they expected fire, shockwaves, and radioactive fallout. What they did not expect was the creation of a rare material once believed impossible by scientists. Decades later, researchers examining debris from the blast uncovered a strange crystal hidden inside trinitite, the glassy material formed when desert sand melted during the explosion. The discovery quickly gained attention because the structure matched a quasicrystal, a highly unusual type of matter with patterns that do not repeat like ordinary crystals.
