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A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion-based weapons have used a fission device to initiate fusion, and a pure fusion ...
Jul 9, 2024 · Nuclear weapon, device designed to release energy in an explosive manner as a result of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or a combination of the two. Fission weapons are commonly referred to as atomic bombs, and fusion weapons are referred to as thermonuclear bombs or, more commonly, hydrogen bombs.
Aug 1, 2023 · 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...
Jul 9, 2024 · The prompt effects of a nuclear explosion and fallout are well known through data gathered from the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan; from more than 500 atmospheric and more than 1,500 underground nuclear tests conducted worldwide; and from extensive calculations and computer modeling.
Mar 1, 2022 · Nuclear bombs involve the forces — strong and weak — that hold the nucleus of an atom together, especially atoms with unstable nuclei. There are two basic ways that nuclear energy can be released from an atom. In nuclear fission, scientists split the nucleus of an atom into two smaller fragments with a neutron.
Jun 17, 2024 · Chernobyl disaster, accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union in 1986, the worst disaster in nuclear power generation history. Between 2 and 50 people were killed in the initial explosions, and dozens more contracted serious radiation sickness, some of whom later died.
3 days ago · Washington, D.C., July 16, 2024 - On 16 July 1945, 79 years ago, the United States, under the Manhattan Project, staged the first test of a nuclear weapon in the New Mexican desert. The first trial of a plutonium implosion weapon, the explosion on the ground produced radioactive fallout contaminating over 1,100 square miles of the state, although some debris spread as far north as Canada.
Mar 2, 2022 · The most immediate effect of a nuclear explosion is an intense burst of nuclear radiation, primarily gamma rays and neutrons. This direct radiation is produced in the weapon’s nuclear reactions themselves, and lasts well under a second.
A nuclear blast, produced by explosion of a nuclear bomb (sometimes called a nuclear detonation), involves the joining or splitting of atoms (called fusion and fission) to produce an intense pulse or wave of heat, light, air pressure, and radiation.
Effects of nuclear explosions. A Nevada-series of nuclear weapons effects tests by the United States, displaying initial thermal flash-burns followed by blast and shock-front against various types of vehicles and infrastructures. Nuclear weapons.
