Some people think that the future world war is likely to be a nuclear war. For humans living on earth,What does a nuclear bomb detonate mean? What happens after a nuclear explosion? Of course, the answers to these questions depend on how many nuclear bombs are detonated.
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According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia and the United States possess 90 percent of the world‘s nuclear weapons. Russia has 1,588 nuclear weapons deployed on intercontinental missiles with a range of at least 5,500 kilometers and a heavy bomber base that can carry and drop nuclear weapons; the United States has 1,644 of the same (the two countries also have nearly 5,000 Active nuclear bombs waiting to be fired at all times). It is easy to imagine that a full-scale nuclear war could mean the annihilation of humanity – not only because of the initial huge casualties, but also because of the ensuing global cooling, the so-called “nuclear winter.”
Perhaps more likely, according to some foreign policy experts, would be a limited-scale nuclear conflict involving belligerent states using so-called “tactical atomic weapons.” According to the James Martin Center for Nuclear Nonproliferation Research, 30 to 40 percent of the U.S. and Russia’s nuclear arsenals are made up of such small nuclear bombs, which have a range of less than 500 kilometers over land and less than 600 kilometers at sea or in the air. kilometer. These weapons would still have devastating effects near the blast zone, but would not cause the worst global nuclear catastrophe.
nuclear explosion process
Nuclear weapons come in different types and sizes, and modern nuclear bombs all start by triggering a fission reaction. In simple terms, fission is the splitting of heavier (higher atomic number) atoms into lighter (lower atomic number) atoms, releasing neutrons in the process; the released neutrons rush toward nearby atoms. The nucleus, which splits the nucleus, triggering an uncontrolled chain reaction.
The results of the fission explosions were devastating: what destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan was the use of nuclear fission bombs, or atomic bombs, with a power of between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of TNT. However, many modern nuclear weapons could do more damage. Thermonuclear weapons, or hydrogen bombs, can use the energy of the initial fission reaction to fuse the hydrogen atoms within the weapon, known as fusion. This fusion reaction produces more neutrons, which leads to more fission, which in turn produces more fusion, and so on. According to the NGO Union of Concerned Scientists, the result of a hydrogen bomb explosion is a fireball with a temperature comparable to that of the center of the sun. Thermonuclear weapons have been tested many times, but never used in combat.
Arguably, when a person is at the center of such a nuclear explosion, there is only one outcome: immediate death. For example, according to a 2007 report, a 10,000-ton nuclear weapon (equivalent to the size of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) would instantly kill about 50 percent of people within 3.2 kilometers of the ground (according to the International The nuclear weapons campaign group ICAN said the damage radius of an airborne nuclear blast was greater). The causes of these deaths will be fires, intense radiation and other lethal injuries. Of these, some would be injured by the shock wave from the explosion, while most would be injured by collapsing buildings or flying shrapnel; most structures within 0.8 km of the blast would be destroyed or severely damaged.
After receiving any warning—either from official sources, or seeing a flash of light from a nearby explosion—one should take refuge in a basement or the interior center of a large building, where at least 24 hours to avoid the worst fallout injuries.
However, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), survivors in the vicinity of the nuclear blast have received little help. Destroyed roads and train tracks, razed hospitals, and casualties of doctors, nurses and first responders made it almost impossible to deliver supplies or rescue workers to the blast zone, especially given the high radiation levels after a nuclear blast. In addition, survivors carry radioactive fallout that requires cleaning. According to the 2021 book “Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century: A Citizen’s Guide,” published by MIT Press, most people are likely to suffer from the initial thermal explosion Thermal burns. The book also notes that deaths can also be caused by fire storms; depending on the topography of the blast area, the fires from the initial explosion can pool together to create storms that can fuel themselves. Such a fire storm once occurred in Hiroshima, Japan, engulfing an area of 11.4 square kilometers, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
radioactive fallout
Radiation is a secondary consequence of nuclear explosions, and more harmful. According to the book “Nuclear Options for the 21st Century,” the atomic bomb dropped on Japan caused a localized fallout, in contrast to modern thermonuclear weapons that blast radioactive material into the stratosphere (the middle layer of Earth’s atmosphere), causing a global Sexual fallout. The extent of the fallout depends on whether the bomb was detonated in the air or on the ground, with the former worsening the global fallout situation but reducing the immediate impact of the nuclear detonation point; the latter having limited global impact but immediate destruction blast area.
The risk of radioactive fallout is highest within 48 hours after the explosion. According to Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s 1987 manual “Nuclear War Survival Skills,” in the absence of snow or rain — both of which help fallout fall to the ground more quickly — In the case of widely floating dust particles, they may be minimally radioactive when they fall to the ground.
“Nuclear War Survival Skills” also states that 48 hours after a nuclear explosion, an area initially exposed to 1,000 roentgens per hour will receive only 10 roentgens per hour. According to the manual, when a person is exposed to a total dose of about 350 roentgens over a few days, about half of them are likely to die from acute radiation poisoning. (By contrast, a typical abdominal CT scan may expose a person to less than 1 roentgen of radiation.)
Survivors exposed to fallout have a high risk of developing cancer for the rest of their lives. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, specialized hospitals in Hiroshima and Nagasaki treated more than 10,000 officially recognized survivors of the 1945 nuclear bombing, most of whom died of cancer; Over 15 years, the rate of leukemia among radiation-exposed victims was four to five times higher than normal.
environmental disaster
Nuclear radiation and radioactive fallout can have serious effects on the environment and human health. If the scale of a nuclear conflict is large enough, a nuclear explosion could even affect the climate.
Fallout may even fall on farmland. In 2017, Michael May, director emeritus of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, pointed out that if the fallout enters the food supply chain, it could lead to long-term health problems, such as cancer. Among them, the damage of radioactive iodine is particularly significant.
Radioactive iodine, iodine-131, is a radioactive isotope of iodine produced by artificial nuclear fission. The iodine ingested by the cows is concentrated in the milk, and the iodine in the milk is concentrated in the thyroid gland of the child, which can lead to thyroid cancer. Therefore, when exposed to free iodine radiation after a nuclear disaster, taking iodine tablets (potassium iodide) within 4 hours can saturate the thyroid with non-radioactive iodine-127, thereby reducing the absorption of radioactive iodine by the thyroid.
During a nuclear war, if enough nuclear bombs are detonated, a large amount of dust and soot will be injected into the atmosphere, which will have a serious cooling effect on the climate. According to an analysis published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2012, one or two nuclear explosions would have no global impact, whereas detonating 100 would be equivalent to dropping 100 on Hiroshima in 1945 The nuclear weapons of the atomic bomb would drop global temperatures below that of the Little Ice Age (from about 1300 to 1850). What followed would be dramatic and sudden climate change: Earth’s temperature dropped by as much as 2 degrees Celsius during the Little Ice Age, more than the level of warming since the Industrial Revolution (roughly 1 degree Celsius). If such a sudden cooling were to occur today, it would directly affect agriculture and the food supply. The Little Ice Age caused severe crop failures and famine when the world‘s population was less than one-seventh of today’s.
To maximize our chances of surviving a nuclear attack, the official advice is to have a set of emergency supplies in a safe shelter. The same gear can also be used for other disasters, such as hurricanes or long-term power outages. (Nintendo)