The terrain beneath the bomb-Ground Zero, it was called-also underwent a transformation, which scientists are still trying to understand. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who oversaw the building of the first atomic bombs, called the test site Trinity, in honor of John Donne’s sonnet “Batter my heart, three-person’d God.” The poem contains the words “break, blow, burn, and make me new.” Oppenheimer was made new by the explosion, or, at least, was not the same afterward. They are noble animals with horns like medieval spikes, and they can go for extended periods without water. It is home to herds of oryx, an African antelope. At the same time, the range functions as an unofficial wildlife refuge, the secrecy of the place serving to protect various species. One corner of White Sands is occupied by linear, the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research project, which scans the skies for errant asteroids, particularly those big enough to cause mass extinctions. Lately, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has been using an area nearby to study the effects of explosives on underground bunkers. The missile range is still an active facility. White Sands is a mesmerizing place-an outdoor museum of mankind’s highest ambitions and deepest fears. The change in vegetation explains why the site is visible from miles away, and probably from space. When plant life returned to the spot, grass and yucca plants took the place of the creosote. When the bomb went off, it obliterated the creosote bushes that had been growing here, along with every other living thing inside the circle. This is the site of the first atomic explosion, which took place on July 16, 1945. At the end of the road is a neat circular shape, about a half mile in diameter. At the northern end of the White Sands Missile Range, in the semi-arid desert of central New Mexico, a road stretches toward the charcoal-colored rockface of the Oscura Mountains, which rise to nearly nine thousand feet.
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