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A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction.The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion-based weapons have used a fission device to initiate fusion, and a pure fusion weapon remains a hypothetical device.
Overpressure psi (kPa; bar) Effect on buildings and people within 1 (6.9; 0.069) Window glass shatters; Light injuries from fragments occur; 2 (14; 0.14) Moderate damage to houses (windows and doors blown out and severe damage to roofs)
Mushroom cloud from the explosion of Castle Bravo, the largest nuclear weapon detonated by the US, in 1954 Nuclear war could yield unprecedented human death tolls and habitat destruction . Detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons would have an immediate, short term and long-term effects on the climate, potentially causing cold weather known ...
The next danger to avoid is radioactive fallout: a mixture of fission products (or radioisotopes) that a nuclear explosion creates by splitting atoms. Nuclear explosions loft this material high ...
At the explosion of nuclear bombs lightning discharges sometimes occur. [40] Smoke trails are often seen in photographs of nuclear explosions. These are not from the explosion; they are left by sounding rockets launched just prior to detonation. These trails allow observation of the blast's normally invisible shock wave in the moments following ...
The burst of neutrons created in the thermonuclear reaction is then free to escape the bomb, outpacing the physical explosion. By designing the thermonuclear stage of the weapon carefully, the neutron burst can be maximized while minimizing the blast itself. This makes the lethal radius of the neutron burst greater than that of the explosion ...
A nuclear electromagnetic pulse (nuclear EMP or NEMP) is a burst of electromagnetic radiation created by a nuclear explosion.The resulting rapidly varying electric and magnetic fields may couple with electrical and electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges.
The opposite of explosion (which expands the volume), implosion reduces the volume occupied and concentrates matter and energy. Implosion involves a difference between internal (lower) and external (higher) pressure, or inward and outward forces, that is so large that the structure collapses inward into itself, or into the space it occupied if ...