---
title: "Scientists Scan Gruesome Crystal Formed by Nuclear Blast, Find Something Bizarre"
description: "Nuclear bombs irreversibly impact on the environment. Decades after the Trinity test, scientists are still learning about its effects."
date: "2026-05-16"
modified: "2026-05-16"
authors:
  - name: "Krystle Vermes"
    job_title: "Contributor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kvermes"
url: "https://futurism.com/science-energy/nuclear-test-red-trinitite"
categories:
  - "Environment"
  - "Military"
  - "Science & Energy"
---

# Scientists Scan Gruesome Crystal Formed by Nuclear Blast, Find Something Bizarre

![A rough, irregularly shaped mineral or rock specimen with a glossy surface, predominantly red with patches of greenish and yellowish areas. The background is a grid pattern.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/nuclear-test-gory-compound-bomb.jpg>)
*Luca Bindi, et al. / Getty Images*

The US Army's Trinity test in 1945, the first-ever demonstration of a nuclear weapon, was a grim inflection point in human history: the prelude to the deadly attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a remaking of the global order, the apocalyptic shadow of which we all now live beneath.

In the irradiated crater it left behind, scientists discovered a glassy remnant later dubbed trinitite, a byproduct of New Mexico desert sand and leftover test site like a tower and coaxial cables, fused together and transformed by the unimaginable heat and force of the blast. Most of the stuff is a greyish-green material, but a rare variation, which takes the form of a red crystal, has long been a source of fascination due to its nightmarish visage, which features bulbous protrusions vaguely evoking the horror of exposed flesh.

Now, a [new study](<https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2604165123>) published in *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* used CT and X-ray scans to probe the composition of the mysterious crystal. In the process, they found something bizarre: a material called a clathrate, which traps atoms inside its lattice and which had never previously been observed in the natural world or even the wreckage of a nuclear explosion.

"It’s a completely new kind of clathrate crystal — something never seen before in nature or in the products of a nuclear explosion," University of Florence geologist Luca Bindi, who co-authored the new paper, [told *Scientific American*](<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-crystals-found-inside-wreckage-from-the-first-nuclear-bomb-test/>).

The research underscores the radioactive nightmare of nuclear warfare, which creates conditions so extreme that they defy comprehension even after nearly a century.

And if you were thinking of heading out to the New Mexico desert to find some for yourself, tread carefully — it's [illegal to gather the stuff](<https://arstechnica.com/staff/2021/05/trinitite-the-radioactive-rock-buried-in-new-mexico-before-the-atari-games/>).

**More on nuclear projects**: [*The Trump Administration Is Doing Something Horrifying to Workers at Nuclear Facilities*](<https://futurism.com/science-energy/nuclear-workers-trump>)