Aftermath Of Cleaning Up A H-Bomb Disaster Decades Ago
Aftermath Of Cleaning Up A H-Bomb Disaster Decades Ago.
Hydrogen bombs, or thermonuclear bombs, are more powerful than atomic or “fission” bombs. The difference between thermonuclear bombs and fission bombs begins at the atomic level. Fission bombs, like those used to devastate the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II, work by splitting the nucleus of an atom. When the neutrons, or neutral particles, of the atom’s nucleus split, some hit the nuclei of nearby atoms, splitting them, too. The result is an explosive chain reaction. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki exploded with the yield of 15 kilotons and 20 kilotons of TNT, respectively. In contrast, the first test of a thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb, in the United States in November 1952 yielded an explosion on the order of 10,000 kilotons of TNT. Thermonuclear bombs start with the same fission reaction that powers atomic bombs — but the majority of the uranium or plutonium in atomic bombs actually goes unused. In a thermonuclear bomb, an additional step means that more of the bomb’s explosive power becomes available. First, an igniting explosion compresses a sphere of plutonium-239, the material that will then undergo fission. Inside this pit of plutonium-239 is a chamber of hydrogen gas. The high temperatures and pressures created by the plutonium-239 fission cause the hydrogen atoms to fuse. This fusion process releases neutrons, which feed back into the plutonium-239, splitting more atoms and boosting the fission chain reaction. Credit: Live Science.
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