This block of leaded glass was used to protect workers during the development of the world’s first atomic bomb.

It sold for $6,875 in a Nature and Science sale at Heritage Auction on November 4.

This leaded glass provided protection against nuclear radiation 

Research on the bomb was carried out under the codename of the Manhattan Project.

The glass shown here is from the Hanford Site in Washington State, where the project moved in 1943. The location was chosen for its distance from a large population centre.

The Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, was built here. Heritage states the glass “has a water clear transparency and sort of ‘glows’ in the light.”

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