The fission bombs dropped on Japan created local fallout, according to "Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century," but modern thermonuclear weapons blast radioactive material high into the stratosphere (the middle layer of Earth's atmosphere), allowing for global fallout. Radiation is the secondary, and much more insidious, consequence of a nuclear blast. (Image credit: Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Image taken from a tower on Bikini Island. The underwater Baker nuclear explosion on July 25, 1946, created a huge mushroom-shaped cloud that spread radiation far and wide. Department of Energy, engulfing 4.4 square miles (11.4 square kilometers). Such a firestorm occurred in Hiroshima, according to the U.S. Death could also come by firestorm, the book says depending on the terrain of the blast zone, fires caused by the initial blast can combine and create their own, self-fueling wind. Most would likely suffer thermal burns from the initial thermal blast, according to the book " Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century: A Citizen's Guide" (MIT Press, 2021). Survivors would carry radioactive dust and would need to be decontaminated. With roads and train tracks destroyed, hospitals leveled, and doctors, nurses and first responders in the blast zone dead or injured, there would be few options for bringing in supplies or people to help, especially given the high levels of radiation following a detonation. There would be little help for survivors near the detonation area, however, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). government website advises that anyone with prior warning - either from official communications or from seeing a flash from a nearby detonation - move to a basement or the center of a large building and stay there for at least 24 hours to avoid the worst radioactive fallout. Thermonuclear bombs have been tested, but never used in combat. The result, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, is a fireball with temperatures that match the heat of the center of the sun. This fusion reaction kicks off yet more neutrons, which create more fission, which create more fusion, and on and on. Thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bombs use the power of the initial fission reaction to fuse hydrogen atoms within the weapon. Many modern weapons, though, have the potential to do even worse damage. The resulting fission explosion is devastating: It was fission bombs, sometimes known as atomic bombs or A-bombs, that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, with the force of between 15 kilotons and 20 kilotons of TNT. These neutrons, in turn, can careen into the nuclei of nearby atoms, splitting them and setting off an out-of-control chain reaction. Fission is the splitting of the nuclei of heavy atoms into lighter atoms - a process that releases neutrons. There are different types and sizes of nuclear weapons, but modern bombs start by triggering a fission reaction. (Image credit: Encyclopaedia Britannica/UIG Via Getty Images) These weapons would still have devastating impacts near the blast zone, but would not create the worst-case global nuclear apocalypse.Ī thermonuclear warhead depends on both fission and fusion to create an explosion. and Russian arsenals are made up of these smaller bombs, which have ranges of less than 310 miles (500 kilometers) by land and less than 372 miles (600 km) by sea or air. According to the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 30% to 40% of the U.S. Perhaps a more likely scenario, according to some foreign policy experts, involves a limited-scale nuclear conflict using so-called tactical atomic weapons. (The two countries also have another nearly 5,000 active bombs between them that are functional and simply awaiting launchers.) A full-scale nuclear war could easily represent an extinction event for humanity - not just because of the initial deaths but also because of the global cooling, so-called nuclear winter, that would follow. has 1,644 weapons poised in the same way. Russia has 1,588 weapons deployed on intercontinental missiles, which have a range of at least 3,417 miles (5,500 kilometers) and heavy bomber bases, which host aircraft capable of carrying and dropping a nuclear payload, and the U.S. Russia and the United States have 90% of the world's nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The answer depends, of course, on how many weapons are dropped.
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