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Operation Scorch Sword
Operation Scorch Sword ( fa, عملیات شمشیر سوزان) was a surprise airstrike, carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force on 30 September 1980, that damaged an almost-complete nuclear reactor located southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. The operation took place eight days into the Iran–Iraq War. At dawn on 30 September 1980, four Iranian F-4E Phantom jets refuelled mid-air near the Iran–Iraq border. After crossing into Iraq, the fighters climbed to a high altitude in order to stay undetected by Iraqi airspace radar systems. Moments later, two of the Phantoms peeled off and dropped to a low altitude again to avoid internal radar detection and proceeded to fly stealthily to the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre just southeast of the capital city of Baghdad, and home to the ''Osirak'' nuclear reactor. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iran–Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides. Iraq's primary rationale for the attack against Iran cited the need to prevent Ruhollah Khomeini—who had spearheaded Iran's Iranian Revolution, Islamic Revolution in 1979—from exporting the new Iranian ideology to Iraq; there were also fears among the Iraqi leadership of Saddam Hussein that Iran, a theocratic state with a population predominantly composed of Shia Islam, Shia Muslims, would exploit Sectarian violence in Iraq, sectarian tensions in Iraq by rallying Iraq's Shia majority against the Ba'ath Party (Iraqi-dominated faction), Baʽathist government, which was officially secular and dominated by Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims. Iraq also wished to replace Iran as the power player in the Pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear ''fission'' of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear ''decay'' processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as ''Voyager 2''. Generating electricity from ''fusion'' power remains the focus of international research. Most nuclear power plants use thermal reactors with enriched uranium in a once-through fuel cycle. Fuel is removed when the percentage of neutron absorbing atoms becomes so large that a chain reaction can no longer be sustained, typically three years. It is then cooled for several years in on-site spent fuel pools before being transferred to long term storage. The spent fuel, though low in volume, is high-level radioactive wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wilson (physicist)
Richard Wilson (29 April 1926 – 19 May 2018) was a British-American physicist. His original fields were nuclear and elementary particle physics but branched out into applications of physics in other disciplines. Most of his career he has been a physics professor at Harvard University. Biography Wilson was born in Putney, London, on 29 April 1926 to Dorothy Jennett Kingston, a teacher of French, and Percy Wilson a civil servant in the Board of Education, who had been a Naval officer in World War I. He went to Colet Court school in Hammersmith, a preparatory School for St Paul's School, and then to St Paul's School from 1939 to 1943. He earned a BA in 1946 at Christ Church Oxford, and an MA and D Phil in 1949. He was awarded a Research Lectureship at Christ Church from 1949 to 1954. On leave from this lectureship he visited America on a Guggenheim fellowship in 1950 – 1952, firstly at Rochester New York, then at Stanford University, California. While at Stanford he married ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enriched Uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U with 99.2739–99.2752% natural abundance), uranium-235 (235U, 0.7198–0.7202%), and uranium-234 (234U, 0.0050–0.0059%). 235U is the only nuclide existing in nature (in any appreciable amount) that is fissile with thermal neutrons. Enriched uranium is a critical component for both civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency attempts to monitor and control enriched uranium supplies and processes in its efforts to ensure nuclear power generation safety and curb nuclear weapons proliferation. There are about 2,000 tonnes of highly enriched uranium in the world, produced mostly for nuclear power, nuclear weapons, naval propulsion, and smaller quantities for research reactors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region
, native_name_lang = ar , colorcode = , governing_body = Regional Command , leader1_title = Secretary , leader1_name = Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed , headquarters = Baghdad, Iraq , newspaper = ''Al-Thawra'' , founders = Fuad al-RikabiSa'dun Hammadi , founded = Late 1940s * Sheffer, Gabriel; Ma'oz, Moshe (2002). ''Middle Eastern Minorities and Diasporas''. Sussex Academic Press. p. 174. . * * Ghareeb, Edmund A.; Dougherty, Beth K. (2004). ''Historical Dictionary of Iraq''. The Scarecrow Press, Ltd. p. 194. . or early 1950s * Polk, William Roe (2006). ''Understanding Iraq: A Whistlestop Tour from Ancient Babylon to Occupied Baghdad''. I.B. Tauris. p. 109. . * Sheffer, Gabriel; Ma'oz, Moshe (2002). ''Middle Eastern Minorities and Diasporas''. Sussex Academic Press. p. 174. . * , wing1_title = , wing1 = National Guard Popular Army , wing2_title = Militant groups , wing2 = Al-Awda, SCJL, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babylonian Calendar
The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar with years consisting of 12 lunar months, each beginning when a new crescent moon was first sighted low on the western horizon at sunset, plus an intercalary month inserted as needed by decree. The calendar is based on a Sumerian (Third Dynasty of Ur) predecessor preserved in the Umma calendar of Shulgi (c. 21st century BC). Months The year begins in spring, and is divided into ''reš šatti'' "beginning", ''mišil šatti'' "middle", and ''qīt šatti'' "end of the year". The word for "month" was ''arḫu'' (construct state ''araḫ''). The chief deity of the Assyrians is assigned the surplus intercalary month, showing that the calendar originates in Babylonian, and not later Assyrian times. During the 6th century BC Babylonian captivity of the Jews, the Babylonian month names were adopted into the Hebrew calendar. In Iraq and the Levant the Gregorian solar calendar is used with these names replacing the Latin ones as Arabic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tammuz (Babylonian Calendar)
Tammuz was a month in the Babylonian calendar, named for one of the main Babylonian gods, Tammuz (Sumerian: ''Dumuzid'', "son of life").Hastings, 2004, p. 676. Many different calendar systems have since adopted Tammuz to refer to a month in the summer season. In the Hebrew calendar, Tammuz is the tenth month of the civil year and the fourth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. It is a summer month of 29 days. Tammuz is also the name for the month of July in the Gregorian calendar in Arabic (تموز), Syriac (''ܬܡܘܙ'') and Turkish ("Temmuz").Cragg, 1991, p. 260. History The festival for the deity Tammuz was held throughout the month of Tammuz in midsummer, and celebrated his death and resurrection. The first day of the month of Tammuz was the day of the new moon of the summer solstice.Kitto, 1846, p. 825. On the second day of the month, there was lamentation over the death of Tammuz, on the 9th, 16th and 17th days torchlit processions, and on the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility
The Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility adjacent to the Tuwaitha "Yellow Cake Factory" or Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center contains the remains of nuclear reactors bombed by Iran in 1980, Israel in 1981 and the United States in 1991. It was used as a storage facility for spent reactor fuel and industrial and medical wastes. The radioactive material would not be useful for a fission bomb, but could be used in a dirty bomb. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the facility was heavily looted by hundreds of Iraqis, though it is unclear what was taken. History The Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center was the main nuclear site in Iraq that was involved with handling nuclear material. It was started in 1967 when three main nuclear facilities and waste location were put in operation. These were the IRT 2000 research reactor, the radioisotope production building and the dumping station (waste store). Many other nuclear facilities were subsequently constructed at this site, and the IRT 2000 re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Watt (1736–1819), an 18th-century Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved the Newcomen engine with his own steam engine in 1776. Watt's invention was fundamental for the Industrial Revolution. Overview When an object's velocity is held constant at one metre per second against a constant opposing force of one newton, the rate at which work is done is one watt. : \mathrm In terms of electromagnetism, one watt is the rate at which electrical work is performed when a current of one ampere (A) flows across an electrical potential difference of one volt (V), meaning the watt is equivalent to the volt-ampere (the latter unit, however, is used for a different quantity from the real power of an electrical cir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enriched Uranium
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U with 99.2739–99.2752% natural abundance), uranium-235 (235U, 0.7198–0.7202%), and uranium-234 (234U, 0.0050–0.0059%). 235U is the only nuclide existing in nature (in any appreciable amount) that is fissile with thermal neutrons. Enriched uranium is a critical component for both civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency attempts to monitor and control enriched uranium supplies and processes in its efforts to ensure nuclear power generation safety and curb nuclear weapons proliferation. There are about 2,000 tonnes of highly enriched uranium in the world, produced mostly for nuclear power, nuclear weapons, naval propulsion, and smaller quantities for research reactors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Research Reactor
Research reactors are nuclear fission-based nuclear reactors that serve primarily as a neutron source. They are also called non-power reactors, in contrast to power reactors that are used for electricity production, heat generation, or maritime propulsion. Purpose The neutrons produced by a research reactor are used for neutron scattering, non-destructive testing, analysis and testing of materials, production of radioisotopes, research and public outreach and education. Research reactors that produce radioisotopes for medical or industrial use are sometimes called isotope reactors. Reactors that are optimised for beamline experiments nowadays compete with spallation sources. Technical aspects Research reactors are simpler than power reactors and operate at lower temperatures. They need far less fuel, and far less fission products build up as the fuel is used. On the other hand, their fuel requires more highly enriched uranium, typically up to 20% U-235, although some us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osirak
Operation Opera ( he, מבצע אופרה), also known as Operation Babylon, was a surprise airstrike conducted by the Israeli Air Force on 7 June 1981, which destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor located southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. The Israeli operation came after Iran's partially successful Operation Scorch Sword had caused minor damage to the same nuclear facility a year prior, with the damage having been subsequently repaired by French technicians. Operation Opera, and related Israeli government statements following it, established the Begin Doctrine, which explicitly stated the strike was not an anomaly, but instead "a precedent for every future government in Israel". Israel's counter-proliferation preventive strike added another dimension to its existing policy of deliberate ambiguity, as it related to the nuclear weapons capability of other states in the region. In 1976, Iraq purchased an ''Osiris''-class nuclear reactor from France.Ramberg, Bennett. ''Nucl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
