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The initial explosion catapulted the 740-ton silo door away from the silo and ejected the second stage and warhead. Once clear of the silo, the second stage exploded. The W53 thermonuclear warhead landed about 100 feet (30 m) from the launch complex's entry gate. Its safety features prevented any loss of radioactive material or nuclear detonation.
Sand will fuse into glass if it is close enough to the nuclear fireball to be drawn into it, and is thus heated to the necessary temperatures to do so; this is known as trinitite. [39] At the explosion of nuclear bombs lightning discharges sometimes occur. [40] Smoke trails are often seen in photographs of nuclear explosions.
This U.S. design was the heavy but highly efficient (i.e., nuclear weapon yield per unit bomb weight) 25 Mt (100 PJ) B41 nuclear bomb. [21] The Soviet Union is thought to have used multiple stages (including more than one tertiary fusion stage) in their 50 Mt (210 PJ) (100 Mt (420 PJ) in intended use) Tsar Bomba.
The first thing you'd see if a nuclear bomb exploded nearby is a flood of light so bright, you may think the sun blew up -- but don't try to drive away. If a nuclear bomb explodes nearby, here's ...
A nuclear weapon [a] is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a ...
A bomb was mistakenly dropped by a U.S. Air Force Boeing B-47E-LM Stratojet near Savannah, Georgia when a man in the bomb bay area grabbed the emergency release pin by accident. Similar to the 1957 incident, safety precautions meant that the plutonium was not mounted to the bomb but rather stored elsewhere on the plane at the time.
Further Air Force personnel were dispatched later the same day, including nuclear experts from U.S. government laboratories. [26] The first weapon to be discovered was found nearly intact. However, the conventional explosives from the other two bombs that fell on land detonated without setting off a nuclear explosion (akin to a dirty bomb ...
In a standard thermonuclear design, a small fission bomb is placed close to a larger mass of thermonuclear fuel, usually lithium deuteride. The two components are then placed within a thick radiation case, usually made from uranium, lead, or steel. The case traps the energy from the fission bomb for a brief period, allowing it to heat and ...