Question

Define nuclear fission.

Answer 1

Hint:The reaction that includes the change in the identity in the personality of the atomic nucleus, initiated by bombarding it with a high energy molecule. The bombarding molecule may either be an alpha molecule, a gamma-ray photon, a neutron, a proton, or a heavy particle. Regardless, the bombarding molecule must have enough energy to move toward the positively charged nucleus to inside the range of the solid atomic power.

Complete step by step solution:
In general, there are four major and main types of the nuclear reaction. They are nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, nuclear decay and transmutation. In nuclear reaction, when the nucleus of an atom splits into lighter nuclei through a nuclear reaction, then the process is termed as nuclear fission. This decay can be natural spontaneous splitting by radioactive decay, or can actually be simulated in a lab by achieving necessary conditions (bombarding with neutrinos). The resulting fragments tend to have a combined mass which is less than the original. The missing mass is what is converted into nuclear energy in the above reaction.

In other terms, when the nucleus of the atom of a heavy radioactive particle is split up into two lighter nuclei with the release of a large amount of energy. This reaction is used in the atom bomb, where the uranium is broken into two pieces with a large amount of release of the energy.

Note: Nuclear fission reaction produces the atomic bomb, a weapon of mass destruction that uses the power released by the splitting of atomic nuclei. When a single free neutron strikes the nucleus of an atom of radioactive material like uranium or plutonium, it knocks two or three more neutrons free.