How big would a 1 gigaton explosion?
A gigaton would have 4.184 exajoules. That 1018 or quintillions. According to the same wikipedia page this number represents about 1/7th of the worlds nuclear arsenal and about twice the amount of nuclear weapons we’ve ever detonated. The largest explosive we’ve ever set off was 50 megatons.
How powerful is a 1 gigaton bomb?
Its weight to energy yield ratio is more than 1:1000. Potential gigaton yield devices are “doomsday bombs.” One detonated about 16 kilometers up would start fires over an area of more than 700,000 square kilometers. A few 1000 gigatons would be enough to kill all humans.
What is the biggest nuclear bomb possible?
Tsar Bomba
| Tsar Bomba | |
|---|---|
| Mass | 27,000 kg (60,000 lb) |
| Length | 8 m (26 ft) |
| Diameter | 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) |
| Detonation mechanism | barometric sensor |
How big is a nuclear fireball?
Within seven-tenths of one millisecond from the detonation, the fireball from a 1-megaton weapon is about 440 feet across, and this increases to a maximum value of about 5,700 feet in 10 seconds. It is then rising at a rate of 250 to 350 feet per second.
Can you detonate a nuke in space?
In the vacuum of space, the lack of air means the principal destructive effects come not from the blast, but instead from the particles and radiation pouring out of the bomb, which dump their energy as heat on striking the target.
How much damage would a B83 do?
1.2 megatons
But there’s a bomb in the US arsenal right now, called the B83, which can produce a blast of 1.2 megatons. To put that into perspective, 1 megaton equals 1 million tons of TNT, which means the B83 could produce a blast 80 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
How many tons of TNT are in a nuclear bomb?
Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as 600 pounds (270 kg) can release energy equal to more than 1.2 megatonnes of TNT (5.0 PJ).
Could you survive a nuclear blast in a fridge?
“The odds of surviving that refrigerator — from a lot of scientists — are about 50-50,” Lucas said.
What’s more powerful than a Tsar bomb?
However, the Soviet Union developed three AN602 physics packages at 101.5 megatons (Mt) and these are more powerful than the Tsar Bomba, which was downscaled to 51 Mt before being used RDS-220 Vanya.