Mushroom clouds are formed by large explosions under Earth’s gravity, but they are best known for their appearance after nuclear detonations. The cloud’s color is initially red or reddish brown due to the presence of nitrous acid and oxides of nitrogen. As the fireball cools and condensation occurs, the color changes to white, mainly due to water droplets as in an ordinary cloud.
A mushroom cloud can be created by any type of explosion, with the cap, central column, and buoyant mass working together to form the iconic mushroom-like structure we see after big explosions. In the case of a nuclear detonation, the bomb emits a blast of x-rays, which ionize. Nuclear bombs dropped during wartime and scientific experiments show that mushroom clouds can form on Earth, but what about in space? If the moon were nuked, would a mushroom cloud form?
Mushroom clouds form when there is a very hot central feature, causing a strong updraft shaft where heated air rises. This vacuum is immediately filled with smoke and debris, forming the visible central column of what will become the mushroom cloud. The fireball soon reaches a point where the cloud rises more than seven and a half miles into the sky, about two miles into the atmosphere higher than Mt. Everest.
In an explosion, the less-dense hot air meets the more-dense cold air, forming it into a mushroom shape. Forest fires may produce clouds of actual water vapour, known as pyrocumulus, but atomic mushroom clouds are mainly composed of smoke and dust.
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What is the shape of a mushroom cloud?
The Nevada Test Site produces a mushroom cloud, which reaches its maximum height after 10 minutes and is stabilized. Laterally, it grows to form the mushroom shape. As the fireball cools, vapors condense to form a cloud containing solid particles of weapon debris and small drops of water. Afterwinds, produced by strong updrafts with inflowing winds, can cause varying amounts of dirt and debris to be sucked up from the earth’s surface.
In air bursts with moderate amounts of dirt and debris, only a small proportion become contaminated with radioactivity. The cloud’s color initially turns red or reddish brown due to nitrous acid and nitrogen oxides, but as it cools and condensation occurs, it changes to white due to water droplets.
What was the biggest nuke ever made?
The Tsar Bomba, a Soviet thermonuclear bomb, was detonated in a test over Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961. The bomb was built in 1961 by a group of Soviet physicists, including Andrey Sakharov, to show Soviet strength during the Cold War. The bomb had a 100-megaton capacity, but the resulting fallout was considered too dangerous for a test situation. To reduce the risk, it was modified to yield 50 megatons, estimated to be 3, 800 times the strength of the U.
S. bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. The fusion process of the Soviet device was altered, resulting in a weapon weighing 27 tons, with a length of 26 feet (8 meters) and a diameter of 7 feet (2 meters). The Tu-95V bomber was modified to carry the weapon, equipped with a special parachute to slow its fall. The bomb exploded about 2. 5 miles above the ground, producing a mushroom cloud over 37 miles high, and the flash of the detonation was seen 620 miles away.
The resulting damage was massive, with Severny, an uninhabited village 34 miles from ground zero, leveled, and buildings more than 100 miles away damaged. Heat from the blast was estimated to have caused third-degree burns up to 62 miles away.
How many were killed instantly in Hiroshima?
On 6 August 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in the death of approximately 78, 000 people. The US produced the first nuclear weapons during World War II, following the Manhattan Project led by J Robert Oppenheimer. The bomb, codenamed ‘Little Boy’, exploded one second after the bomb struck Hiroshima, causing a massive fireball with a core temperature of over 1, 000, 000 degrees Celsius. Heat rays from the explosion raised surface temperatures in the path to over 3, 000 degrees Celsius, more than twice the melting point of iron.
This sudden temperature increase rapidly expanded the air around the bomb, generating a blast that traveled faster than the speed of sound. A drop in air pressure in the space behind the blast caused a backdraft powerful enough to burst the eyeballs and internal organs of anyone in its path.
What are the 4 ingredients of a cloud?
Clouds are visible collections of minute water droplets or ice crystals that reside at elevated altitudes above Earth’s surface. The formation of a cloud is contingent upon the presence of several essential elements, including water, a cooling air temperature, and a surface upon which the cloud can form (nuclei). These ingredients interact in a manner that results in the formation of a stable and evaporating atmosphere.
What is the physics behind the mushroom cloud?
A mushroom cloud forms when an explosion creates a hot bubble of gas, known as a fireball, which is ionized and heated by a blast of x-rays. The hot air, buoyant, rises and expands, creating a powerful updraft that picks up dust, forming the stem of the mushroom cloud. Thermal instabilities, called Kelvin- Helmholtz instabilities, occur at the interface between the fireball and the cool air, causing entrained material to swirl outwards.
All atomic bombs produce a bulge and a stem, but the huge, flat clouds that could be described as mushrooms come from high-yield explosions caused by thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs). The fireball from an H-bomb hits the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere, due to a strong temperature gradient. The hot bubble initially expands and rises, but by the time it reaches the tropopause, it is no longer hot enough to break through the boundary. At this point, the fireball flattens out, expanding to the side into an exaggerated mushroom cap.
For more information on mushroom clouds and other atomic-bomb phenomena, readers can refer to the book The Effect of Nuclear Weapons, compiled and edited by Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan.
What are the components of a mushroom cloud?
A mushroom cloud is a flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and condensed water resulting from a large explosion, often associated with nuclear explosions. It can be caused by powerful conventional weapons, thermobaric weapons, volcanic eruptions, and impact events. Mushroom clouds result from the sudden formation of a large volume of lower-density gases at any altitude, causing a Rayleigh-Taylor instability.
The buoyant mass of gas rises rapidly, resulting in turbulent vortices curling downward around its edges, forming a temporary vortex ring that draws up a central column, possibly with smoke, debris, condensed water vapor, or a combination of these, to form the “mushroom stem”.
The mass of gas and entrained moist air eventually reaches an altitude where it is no longer of lower density than the surrounding air, dispersing and drifting back down, resulting in fallout following a nuclear blast. The stabilization altitude depends on the profiles of temperature, dew point, and wind shear in the air.
Why is Hiroshima safe but not Chernobyl?
The Chernobyl explosion occurred at ground level, whereas the Hiroshima explosion took place at a considerable altitude, thereby reducing the levels of radioactive material present in the atmosphere to a significant extent. Furthermore, the strength of the explosions differed.
What happens inside a mushroom cloud?
A mushroom cloud is a terrifying phenomenon that can be created by any massive heat release, such as a volcano or the 2020 Beirut explosion. The explosion causes a massive heat blast that ascends through the atmosphere, creating a vacuum filled with smoke and debris. The smoke and debris form the visible central column of the mushroom cloud. The fireball reaches a point in the atmosphere where the air is cold and dense enough to slow its ascent, flattening the cloud and trailing smoke. The cloud continues to rise, forming the rounded cap of the mushroom cloud. Depending on weather conditions, the cloud can persist for about an hour until winds and air currents disperse it.
How do you describe a mushroom cloud?
The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima symbolizes the horror of war, as it rises in the shape of a large mushroom cloud. The cloud is often associated with nuclear explosions, and its image is often translated into various languages, including English, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Arabic, Bangali, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Gujarati, Hindi, Korean, Marathi, Russian, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
Is the Tsar Bomba still active?
The Tsar Bomba, a successful nuclear weapon, was never considered for operational use due to its considerable size and the potential for its interception. It was regarded as a tool for advancing propaganda, and following the 1961 detonation, Sakharov became involved in efforts to restrict nuclear tests to subterranean locations. In 1963, the United States, Britain, and the USSR signed an agreement banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. This agreement was subsequently joined by numerous other countries.
Is Hiroshima still radioactive?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s radiation is comparable to low levels of natural radioactivity on Earth. Atomic bombs emit explosive energy with a different order of magnitude and radiation. Initial radiation caused significant damage to human bodies, with most exposed within a one-kilometer radius dying. Residual radiation was emitted later, with around 80 percent emitted within 24 hours. Research shows that residual radiation at the hypocenter is 1/1000th of the quantity received immediately following the explosion, and a week later, it is 1/1, 000, 000th, indicating a rapid decline in residual radiation.
📹 Cow vs. Underground nuclear test
From “Atomic Journeys.” Want to see more oddities from the annals of America’s Nuclear Testing history? See “Atomic Journeys …
The only reason you could possibly consider the operators at Chernobyl to be “inadequately trained” is if you are talking about their knowledge of AZ-5. Of course they didn’t know that pushing AZ-5 would temporarily increase reactivity in the core because it was a flawed design to begin with. The rods should not have been made with graphite tips just because graphite is cheaper than boron. But that is in no way the operators fault and insinuating that it is is completely ridiculous.
Ah, the days of real science. The 1950-1970 were the best years for tinkering and getting paid. There was no micro-miniature parts, diagrams were hand-drawn, you didn’t have 5 managers asking why you’re doing X,Y,Z and always paranoid that your research goes even 10 minutes out of scope, no HR department robbing your time with some bullshyt DEI training, just real engineering and job security.
I was on a project for environmental remediation for an old Dow AgroSciences Industrial Site that had to dig up and remove irradiated cows that had been used in nuclear experiments. I wonder if this was one of the cows we had to remove. The ground they were buried was hot, hot, hot, radioactively speaking.
Very interesting and very, very spooky! The first shake seemingly occurs around 4.5 seconds into the article. At around 5.5 seconds, the cow moos in alarm and raises it’s left hind leg, as if it’s trying to keep it’s balance. The dust cloud raises at around the 10 second mark. I wonder why the initial shaking didn’t raise the dust. Anybody have any ideas?
Why does everyone try to be a comedian in the comments section of pretty much every article all the time? Its like theyre literally bots. Always the same quirky lol so random style of zoomer humor. It’s so cringey and predictable. Always the same people with their reddit style quirk-chungus type humor. Its insufferable.
A friend of mine participated in 14 nuclear tests in the navy, you are looking at one of them now. Sailors were always part of tests in the pacific. He was 3 miles away at the closest to 300 down wind at the farthest. He died in i think1992 with 3 adult children with normal bodies apparently. He died of a tumor on his kidney no American Dr had ever seen. SO he went to Tokyo and THEY had seen it. His name was Ed Raper. His opinion was “Don’t think we can’t survive and win a nuclear war”. Not sure what the tumors opinion was.
Believe it or not, This was actually part of a Saturday morning during cartoons commercial in the early 70’s, along with scenes of the Apollo 11 launch. Times were certainly different prior to fake participation awards and non competition no winners stupidity. Thanks Toxic feminism! The world is now SUCH a better place. Right?
Fwiw – these underground explosions do a fantastic job at containing the radiation and the shockwave versus a surface or near surface air burst. Assuming there was no substantial cavitation (which there does not seem to be) the biggest risk to the cow would be impact force as the ground rose and then fell. From the article it does not seem like there was much upward or downward movement. So radiation exposure aside, the cow should have been okay as long as it did not suffer any injured hooves/joints. Scientists are looking for shockwave / energy transfer. The idea is if troops are heading to a location and there’s an underground blast or a blast nearby, where the shockwave travels through the earth, whats the risk to them? Turns out it’s not as bad as you think with deep explosions. Also, usually 10-30 minutes after the blast, a large crater slowly develops as all the molten rock below the surface cools and sets with a cavity above due to displacement and everything collapsing back slowly.