What is nuclear fission?

Nuclear fission is the splitting up of a large and unstable nucleus, into smaller nuclei.


This releases energy.

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Where is nuclear fission carried out on earth?

In nuclear power stations.

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What is spontaneous fission?

Spontaneous fission is when the fission is unforced, and the atom splits by itself.

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What are the steps in a nuclear fission chain reaction?

  1. A neutron is absorbed at by an unstable nucleus (e.g. uranium-235), causing it to split apart.
  2. The unstable nucleus splits into 2 daughter nuclei and 2 or 3 neutrons. It also emits a large amount of energy as gamma radiation.
  3. The 2 or 3 neutrons that were released are then absorbed by other unstable nuclei and this repeats the process from the previous step.
  4. This process then occurs over and over again in what we call a chain reaction.

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What happens to the binding energy per nucleon when nuclear fission occurs?

  1. In nuclear fission, the binding energy per nucleon increases.
  2. This is because the products of fission have a higher binding energy per nucleon than the original nucleus.
  3. The difference in binding energy is released as energy.

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