What's a uranium centrifuge?

Uran­ium is an element that is similar to iron. Like iron, you dig uranium ore out of the ground and then process it to extract the pure uranium from the ore. When you finish processing uranium ore, what you have is uranium oxide. Uranium oxide contains two types (or isotopes) of uranium: U-235 and U-238. U-235 is what you need if you want to make a bomb or fuel a nuclear power plant. But the uranium oxide from the mine is about 99 percent U-238. So you need to somehow separate the U-235 from the U-238 and increase the amount of U-235. The process of concentrating the U-235 is called enrichment, and centrifuges are a central part of the process.

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