24 Radioactive Facts About Nuclear Bombs
These days, cheerful headlines speculate about nuclear war. But ask yourself: what do you REALLY know about nukes? Whether you want to feel...
Published 9 months ago in Wow
These days, cheerful headlines speculate about nuclear war. But ask yourself: what do you REALLY know about nukes?
Whether you want to feel better or just keep yourself up all night, we've gathered the most surprising facts about nuclear bombs!
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-The first one (or maybe the first two) were referred to simply as "The gadget".- An underground nuclear bomb test is thought by some to be responsible for the fastest-moving man-made object in history: A manhole cover. It was used to cover the hole down which the bomb was lowered, and a high-speed camera was trained on it because there was the expectation that it would trail off very quickly.
The camera captured only one frame with the lid in it post-explosion. Calculations are very rough, but if accurate, the lid far exceeded escape velocity, reaching a speed higher than even any spacecraft or probe yet launched, and if it survived intact it will right now be whizzing through space at a ridiculous pace.-u/kiseca5
There was a nuclear missile treaty that a technician describes as “it’s like you have a Volkswagen in your garage. You can never drive it, but you can periodically disassemble it, examine every part, perform maintenance on the parts, ensure that each individual part works as intended, then reassemble it, but you can never start the engine and you definitely can’t drive it.
”There’s also a website where you can superimpose a nuclear blast over various cities. Helps give perspective on the scale of the blast.https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/-u/Thirty_Helens_Agree9
Once the chain reaction with the uranium is initiated, neutrons bounce around inside the device triggering more atoms to release their energy. Early designs exploded before much of the nuclear material had even been triggered, leading to wasted uranium and smaller explosions. The most effective designs contain this chain reaction for as long as possible like a pressure cooker to maximize the size of the explosion.-u/KnowsHair12
Operation Crossroads: After the iconic “Baker” shot, Bikini Lagoon was heavily irradiated, as the bomb was detonated underwater. To show how irradiated the water was, army general Stafford Warren caught a fish from the lagoon and used it to expose an X-Ray image of itself on a piece of film. The fish experiment (and subsequent scientific instrument readings of the radiation) led to the eventual cancellation of the third planned test that was supposed to happen.-u/FreeMoCo200914
In 1961, a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying 2 Mark 39 3-4 megaton nuclear bombs broke apart while flying near Goldsboro, North Carolina. One of the two nuclear bombs came really came close to detonate as somehow 3 out of 4 triggering mechanisms were triggered when they found the bomb.-u/TheBassMeister16
The reason mushroom clouds are as prevalent as they are in SpongeBob is because Bikini Bottom is the sea bed under Bikini Atoll, the site of the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests. It's also a bit of a tourist attraction and the ships there, which include IJN Nagato and USS Saratoga, are diveable wrecks.On a secondary note, water does a very good job of containing radiation.-u/Braith117