Question

The process of splitting of a heavy nucleus into small nuclei is known as___________.

Answer 1

Nuclear fission

• The process of splitting a heavy nucleus into small nuclei is known as nuclear fission.

Example of nuclear fission

• When the uranium-235 atom is bombarded with a neutron, it splits into two lighter nuclei barium and krypton.
• The chemical reaction can be depicted as:

$\mathrm{n}+{}_{92}{}^{235}\mathrm{U}\to {}_{92}{}^{236}\mathrm{U}$

${}_{92}{}^{236}\mathrm{U}\to {}_{56}{}^{144}\mathrm{Ba}+{}_{36}{}^{89}\mathrm{Kr}+3\mathrm{n}$

So, the process of splitting a heavy nucleus into small nuclei is known as nuclear fission.