Besides light, the glowing fireball radiates heat. The fireball glows visibly from its own heat - so visibly that the early stages of a 1-megaton fireball are many times brighter than the Sun even at a distance of 50 miles. A fireball of superheated air forms and grows rapidly 10 seconds after a 1-megaton explosion, the fireball is a mile in diameter. This hot gas radiates its energy in the form of X-rays, which heat the surrounding air. What was cold, solid material microseconds earlier becomes a gas hotter than the Sun’s 15-million-degree core. This article is excerpted from Richard Wolfson and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress’s book “ Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century: A Citizen’s Guide.”Īn exploding nuclear weapon instantly vaporizes itself. An important exception is the enhanced-radiation weapon, or neutron bomb, which maximizes direct radiation and minimizes other destructive effects.
With most weapons, though, direct radiation is of little significance because other lethal effects generally encompass greater distances. Lethal direct radiation extends nearly a mile from a 10-kiloton explosion. This direct radiation is produced in the weapon’s nuclear reactions themselves, and lasts well under a second. The most immediate effect of a nuclear explosion is an intense burst of nuclear radiation, primarily gamma rays and neutrons. What can nuclear weapons do? How do they achieve their destructive purpose? What would a nuclear war - and its aftermath - look like? In the article that follows, excerpted from Richard Wolfson and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress’s book “ Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century,” the authors explore these and related questions that reveal the most horrifying realities of nuclear war.
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