The world's most dangerous object on Earth could kill a fully grown man by being in the same room as it for just five minutes... but how exactly was it made?
There are many things on this planet that pose grave danger to mankind, but none perhaps as much as radiation.
While used nowadays for purposeful things such as generating electricity, radiation has also been used in wars as a weapon of mass destruction - and when unleashed, the consequences are devastating.
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But arguably the most notable radiation disaster is that of Chernobyl, a catastrophic power plant explosion in Pripyat, Ukraine.
The Chernobyl Disaster
On 26 April, 1986, reactor No. 4 exploded during a failed steam test, resulting in the instant deaths of 30 people.
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The radiation released was detected as far away as Sweden.
Many civilians and workers would later go on to die from severe radiation poisoning, as well as hundreds of others in the coming years suffering from extreme pain and terminal illnesses caused by the sheer volume of radiation blasted into the air and atmosphere.
The Chernobyl disaster continues to be the worst nuclear disaster in human history, as well as the costliest.
Pripyat remains abandoned, with it still being deemed uninhabitable due to the volume of radiation that remains in the area.
The most dangerous object on Earth
It won't come as a surprise to learn that the most dangerous object on our planet comes from the Chernobyl disaster.
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Dubbed the 'Elephant's Foot', the large hunk of what appeared to be metal was formed as a result of the deadly explosion in reactor No. 4.
The uranium fuel inside the reactor's core became molton when it overheated. When the steam blew the reactor apart, heat, steam, and molten nuclear fuel combined to form a 100-ton flow of searing-hot chemicals that poured out of the reactor and through the concrete floor to the basement of the facility, where it eventually solidified - thus creating the Elephant's Foot.
Due to the shape the uranium formed, the name the 'Elephant's Foot' was given due to its large, wrinkled appearance - resembling slightly the large mammal's foot.
Discovering the Elephant's Foot
When the deadly structure - which is estimated to weigh a staggering 2.2 tons - was discovered by brave crews entering the destroyed reactor months after the explosion, it was soon realised that it wasn't to be approached.
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The highly radioactive lump was reportedly still searing hot months on, and when it was first measured, the Elephant’s Foot released nearly 10,000 roentgens per hour.
That meant that an hour’s exposure was comparable to that of four and a half million chest X-rays.
Science magazine Nautilus reports that just 30 seconds of exposure would have your cells haemorrhaging, and after four minutes, vomiting and diarrhea would follow.
If you managed to last five minutes in the vicinity of the Elephant's Foot though, you'd have roughly just two days to live.
Studies on the Elephant's Foot
Despite this incredibly high risk, however, over the years investigators have somehow managed to document and study the Elephant's Foot for very short periods of time.
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And while today in 2024 it is gradually cooling down, the Elephant's Foot is still extremely dangerous to be around and scientists have only ever been able to take tiny samples to conduct studies on in labs.
The Elephant's Foot remains entombed in the New Safe Confinement (NSC) that was slid over Chernobyl to prevent any more radiation leaks from the nuclear power plant.
Topics: Chernobyl, World News, Health
Emily Puckering