I think it's a huge stretch to link soil sample info to nuclear weapons, especially when uranium is such a common ballast material in military equipment. I think it actually just makes more sense that Israel is using uraniam counterweights in their bombs, and that's the source of this data.

I also think the article is underselling how straightforward it would be to detect atmospheric use of even very low yield nuclear weapons. There are many nations not aligned with Israel who do space based monitoring of that kind of stuff.

They would obviously use them if they could get away with it.

[–] Gay_Tomato@hexbear.net 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Even if it really is just uranium counterweights it seems like there will be no investigation until the entity falls. Which is just... great.

rust-darkness

[–] CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 2 months ago

But the ballast is made from Depleted Uranium, whereas the concentration that was found is higher Enriched Uranium. Logically there should be less EU than naturally occurs in uranium if the concentration of DU was brought up.

detect atmospheric use of even very low yield nuclear weapons

I think this should be the next step, yeah. Very likely it can be detected.

[–] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 11 points 2 months ago

Would depleted uranium give a false positive in the soil? Is that what you mean by "common ballast?"