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Science 26 May 1972:
Vol. 176. no. 4037, pp. 909 - 911
DOI: 10.1126/science.176.4037.909
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Articles

Plutonium-244 Fission Tracks: Evidence in a Lunar Rock 3.95 Billion Years Old

I. D. Hutcheon 1 and P. B. Price 1

1 Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley 94720

Tracks attributed to the spontaneous fission of plutonium-244 and of uranium-238 were detected in a large whitlockite crystal in the lunar breccia 14321 from the Fra Mauro formation. For a track-retention age of 3.95 x 109 years the number of plutonium tracks relative to the number of uranium tracks is 0.51 ± 0.15, provided that the rock was not heavily neutron-irradiated 3.95 X 109 years ago.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Plutonium-244 Fission Tracks: An Alternative Explanation for Excess Tracks in Lunar Whitlockites.
P. Pellas, P. Pellas, D. Storzer, I. D. Hutcheon, and P. B. Price (1975)
Science 187, 862-864
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)