Far more dangerous than U-235 are the elemental products given off when nuclear fuel goes through fission—especially iodine, strontium, and cesium. “These are the things that uranium splits into when it’s working in a reactor or a bomb,” says Smith. “Those fission products are much more densely radioactive than uranium.”

The United States has attacked three sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s war aimed at destroying the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe that prompted fears of a wider regional conflict.

The U.N.'s atomic watchdog and other experts say radiological contamination is likely inside a key uranium enrichment site at Natanz that was badly damaged by Israel and then hit by U.S. strikes early Sunday.