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An air burst or airburst is the detonation of an explosive device such as an anti-personnel artillery shell or a nuclear weapon in the air instead of on contact with the ground or target. The principal military advantage of an air burst over a ground burst is that the energy from the explosion, including any shell fragments , is distributed ...
Since the E1 component of nuclear EMP depends on the prompt gamma-ray output, which was only 0.1% of yield in Starfish Prime but can be 0.5% of yield in low-yield pure nuclear fission weapons, a 10 kt (42 TJ) bomb can easily be 5 * 8%= 40% as powerful as the 1.44 Mt (6.0 PJ) Starfish Prime at producing EMP.
The human body can survive relatively high blast overpressure without experiencing barotrauma. A 5 psi blast overpressure will rupture eardrums in about 1% of subjects, and a 45 psi overpressure will cause eardrum rupture in about 99% of all subjects. The threshold for lung damage occurs at about 15 psi blast overpressure.
A soil earth medium favors base surge formation in an underground burst. Although the base surge typically contains only about 10% of the total bomb debris in a subsurface burst, it can create larger radiation doses than fallout near the detonation, because it arrives sooner than fallout, before much radioactive decay has occurred.
So the same burst at 50,000 feet (15,000 m) will be at a pressure of about 0.1 atmospheres, resulting in a fireball on the order of 2,150 metres (7,050 ft) in diameter, about twice the size of one near the ground. For a high altitude burst, say 250,000 feet (76 km), the fireball will expand to about 46 kilometres (29 mi) in diameter. [4]
The Cold War ended in 1991, but the looming threat of nuclear attack lives on with more than 14,900 nuclear weapons wielded by nine nations.. A terrorist-caused nuclear detonation is one of 15 ...
Watch a live view of the Gaza skyline as the Israel-Hamas war enters a fifth day. Palestinian civilians were scrambling to find safe havens on Wednesday morning (11 October) as Israel stepped up a ...
Barrel bomb: Improvised unguided aerial bomb made from a barrel or barrel-shaped container filled with explosives. They can sometimes be filled with chemicals, shrapnel and oil. 1948 Israel: Blockbuster bomb "High capacity" bomb for maximum blast effect, only used during World War II. April 1941 United Kingdom: Bouncing bomb