What is Nuclear fission?

The process of dividing one atomic nucleus into a few smaller nuclei, associated with releasing a lot of energy. Nuclear fission can either occur spontaneously in certain cases or be caused by the nucleus excitation with a neutron, proton, deuteron, alpha particle, gamma ray, etc. The process results in a release of a large amount of energy, a few neutrons, and radioactive by-products. The emitted neutrons may induce fission in neighboring nuclei of a fissionable material, discharging more neutrons. This may lead to the repeating sequence, which is likely to cause a chain reaction with lots of nuclei undergoing fission and huge amounts of energy being released.

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