A substance so sensitive it immediately explodes on the lightest touch

Boom ! Even if a feather drop on or a mosquito landed on or like a expectant objet d’art of dust managed to get on top of nitrogen triiodide , an immediate dark-skinned purple burst befall . It ’s because N triiodide is so unsound that it detonate when it ’s disturbed , even slimly . Here ’s it burn down off in slow motion .

Why does it do this?The Royal Institution explains :

Three iodine atoms cluster around one side of a N molecule . Being crowded around one death causes something called bond strain as the atoms repel each other in a small space . The outcome is that the particle is prostrate to falling aside , explosively .