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The range for significant levels of initial radiation does not increase markedly with weapon yield and, as a result, the initial radiation becomes less of a hazard with increasing yield. With larger weapons, above 50 kt (200 TJ), blast and thermal effects are so much greater in importance that prompt radiation effects can be ignored.
All nuclear explosions produce fission products, un-fissioned nuclear material, and weapon residues vaporized by the heat of the fireball. These materials are limited to the original mass of the device, but include radioisotopes with long lives. [3] When the nuclear fireball does not reach the ground, this is the only fallout produced.
The 1.4 Mt total yield 1962 Starfish Prime test had a gamma output of 0.1%, hence 1.4 kt of prompt gamma rays (the blue 'pre-ionisation' curve applies to certain types of thermonuclear weapons, for which gamma and X-rays from the primary fission stage ionize the atmosphere and make it electrically conductive before the main pulse from the ...
Radiation implosion was first developed by Klaus Fuchs and John von Neumann in the United States, as part of their work on the original "Classical Super" hydrogen-bomb design. Their work resulted in a secret patent filed in 1946, and later given to the USSR by Fuchs as part of his nuclear espionage. However, their scheme was not the same as ...
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 weapon remains a hypothetical device.
The single-most important thing to remember if a nuclear bomb is supposed to explode, he says, is to shelter in place. "There were survivors in Hiroshima within 300 meters of the epicenter ...
Compared to a pure fission bomb with an identical explosive yield, a neutron bomb would emit about ten times [9] the amount of neutron radiation. In a fission bomb, at sea level, the total radiation pulse energy which is composed of both gamma rays and neutrons is approximately 5% of the entire energy released; in neutron bombs, it would be ...
Neutron radiation is a form of ionizing radiation that presents as free neutrons.Typical phenomena are nuclear fission or nuclear fusion causing the release of free neutrons, which then react with nuclei of other atoms to form new nuclides—which, in turn, may trigger further neutron radiation.