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uranium
A heavy, silvery-white, naturally radioactive, metallic element (atomic number 92). Its two principally occurring isotopes are uranium-235 and uranium-238. Uranium-235 is indispensable to the nuclear industry because it is the only isotope existing in nature to any appreciable extent that is fissionable by thermal neutrons. Uranium-238 is also important because it absorbs neutrons to produce a radioactive isotope that subsequently decays to plutonium-239, an isotope that also is fissionable by thermal neutrons.
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Source: Argonne National Laboratory
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