Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Anything that doesn't quite fit in elsewhere...
User avatar
Lurking
Posts: 108
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 3:26 am
Location: Internet Antiquarian

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by Lurking »

Yuli Ban wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:22 am nukewave 輝く太陽
𝐀 𝐓 𝐎 𝐌 𝐖 𝐀 𝐕 𝐄 
Internet used to be an escape from the real world.
Now the real world is an escape from internet.
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by wjfox »

Seriously impressive visualisation and commentary.


User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by caltrek »

An Unearthly Spectacle
by Alex Wellerstein
October 21, 2021

https://thebulletin.org/2021/10/the-unt ... lear-bomb/

Introduction:
(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) In the early hours of October 30, 1961, a bomber took off from an airstrip in northern Russia and began its flight through cloudy skies over the frigid Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya. Slung below the plane’s belly was a nuclear bomb the size of a small school bus—the largest and most powerful bomb ever created.

At 11:32 a.m., the bombardier released the weapon. As the bomb fell, an enormous parachute unfurled to slow its descent, giving the pilot time to retreat to a safe distance. A minute or so later, the bomb detonated. A cameraman watching from the island recalled:
  • A fire-red ball of enormous size rose and grew. It grew larger and larger, and when it reached enormous size, it went up. Behind it, like a funnel, the whole earth seemed to be drawn in. The sight was fantastic, unreal, and the fireball looked like some other planet. It was an unearthly spectacle![1]
The flash alone lasted more than a minute. The fireball expanded to nearly six miles in diameter—large enough to include the entire urban core of Washington or San Francisco, or all of midtown and downtown Manhattan. Over several minutes it rose and mushroomed into a massive cloud. Within ten minutes, it had reached a height of 42 miles and a diameter of some 60 miles. One civilian witness remarked that it was “as if the Earth was killed.” Decades later, the weapon would be given the name it is most commonly known by today: Tsar Bomba, meaning “emperor bomb.”

Designed to have a maximum explosive yield of 100 million tons (or 100 megatons) of TNT equivalent, the 60,000-pound monster bomb was detonated at only half its strength. Still, at 50 megatons, it was more than 3,300 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that killed at least 70,000 people in Hiroshima, and more than 40 times as powerful as the largest nuclear bomb in the US arsenal today. Its single test represents about one tenth of the total yield of all nuclear weapons ever tested by all nations.
[1] Vladimir Afanasyev, quoted in Vladimir Suvorov, Strana Limoniya (Soviet Russia Press, 1989), 124-125.


Image
A still frame from a once-secret Soviet documentary of the Tsar Bomba nuclear test, released by Rosatom in August 2020. (See the last post on the previous page of this thread for an untranslated You Tube version of this documentary).
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by wjfox »

User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by wjfox »

User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by Yuli Ban »


Pseudo-nuke, because obviously if it was the real thing, we'd have heard about it by now, but this is pretty much how I imagine a strike in Kyiv to go— some strange flash that's remarked upon, followed by another explosion.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by Yuli Ban »

And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by Yuli Ban »

And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
User avatar
raklian
Posts: 1747
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:46 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by raklian »

Yuli Ban wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:21 pm
It is still as relevant as it was when it first released. :(
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
User avatar
Yuli Ban
Posts: 4631
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:44 pm

Re: Nuclear Explosions (And Pseudo-Nukes Too!)

Post by Yuli Ban »


Though not as effective as Threads, The Day After is still a fantastic and horrifying film
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
Post Reply