Nuclear security

70 years after Hiroshima, Los Alamos remains essential to our national security

Seventy years ago on July 16, scientists with the Manhattan Project tested the Trinity gadget—the first atomic bomb—in the desert outside of Alamogordo, NM. The pre-dawn flash of light that mimicked the noonday sun lit the surrounding mountains, illuminating the imminent end of World War II; it also signaled that humanity had entered a new Atomic Age that held great promise as well as great challenges ahead.