Oppenheimer: What We Realized The Movie Leaves Out

Oppenheimer is Eternal (and not just philosophically)

J Robert Oppenheimer didn’t live to see his revered security clearance restored. Nor did he see the movie that honors his contribution to science and his ethical dilemma about its result. Yet Oppenheimer has a permanent place in the annals of time and science. A floor-fractured crater on the moon bears the name Oppenheimer. It sits in the south pole/ Aitken basin area of the moon.

The crater has “more than a dozen localized pyroclastic deposits associated with the fractures” events (Bennett, et. al, 2016). But his name reaches far beyond the earth and moon. Stefano Sposetti discovered Asteroid 67085 on January 4, 2000. Sposetti, an amateur astronomer in Switzerland at the Gnosca Observatory, named the discovery after Oppenheimer. It is currently orbiting between Jupiter and Mars. Oppenheimer’s asteroid is about 1.947 astronomical units (au), or roughly 180,984,957 miles (291,267,054 kilometers) away from Earth.

Where did we find this stuff? Here Are Our Sources:

5 things to know about the real-life Oppenheimer.  Judy Kurtz, The Hill, 20 July 2023.

‘A ball of blinding light’: Atomic bomb survivors share their stories.  Haruka Sakaguchi, National Geographic, 20 July 2023.

Complex explosive volcanic activity on the Moon within Oppenheimer crater.  Bennet, K., Horgan, B., Gaddis, L., Greenhagen, B., Allen, C. Hayne, P., Bell, J., Paige, D. (2016).  Icarus (Elsevier) 273(14), pp 296 – 314.

Historian unwinds the complexities of J Robert Oppenheimer as scientist, legend.  Samantha Laine Perfas, Harvard Gazette,19 July 2023.

Meet the real J. Robert Oppenheimer’s family, including his wife Kitty, his 2 children, and his grandchildren.  Eammon Jacobs, Insider, 21 July 2023.

Oppenheimer: The secrets he protected and the suspicions that followed him.  Neil Kagan and Stephen Hyslop, National Geographic, 11 July 2023.

Scientific Exodus.  (n.a.) Atomic Heritage Foundation.  (4 June 2014).

Szilard Petition.  Leo Szilard, et al, A Petition to the President of the United States, 17 July 1945.

The Jewish story behind Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer,’ explained.  Shira Li Bartov, The Times of Israel, 21 July 2023.

The real Oppenheimer’s stranger than Hollywood love life.  Katie Dowd, SFGate, 19 July 2023.

The real history behind Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer.’  Andy Kifer, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 July 2023.

The scene Oppenheimer’s grandson says he would have cut from the movie.  Katie Dowd, SFGate, 27 July 2023.

What was Oppenheimer’s first name?  Brye Steeves, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 16 February 2021.

Why Einstein wasn’t part of the Manhattan Project even though he convinced President Roosevelt to build an atomic bomb.  Sonam Sheth, Insider, 19 July 2023.