There is no more destructive force in the world than the explosion of an atomic or vacuum bomb . Various scientific developments have led to the creation of weapons of mass destruction, the destructive power of which cannot be stopped by an explosion. What is the most powerful bomb in the world? To answer this question, you need to understand the features of certain bombs.
What is a bomb?
Nuclear power plants operate on the principle of releasing and holding down nuclear energy. This process is necessarily controlled. The released energy goes into electricity. The atomic bomb leads to a chain reaction that is completely uncontrollable, and a huge amount of released energy causes terrible destruction. Uranium and plutonium are not such harmless elements of the periodic table, they lead to global catastrophes.
Atomic bomb
To understand what is the most powerful atomic bomb on the planet, we will learn more about everything. Hydrogen and atomic bombs are nuclear power. If you combine two pieces of uranium, but each will have a mass below critical, then this "union" will far exceed the critical mass. Each neutron is involved in a chain reaction, because it splits the nucleus and releases another 2-3 neutrons, which cause new decay reactions.
Neutron power is completely beyond human control. In less than a second, hundreds of billions of newly formed decays not only release a huge amount of energy, but also become sources of strong radiation. This radioactive rain covers the earth, fields, plants and all living things with a thick layer. If we talk about disasters in Hiroshima, we can see that 1 gram of explosive caused the death of 200 thousand people.
Principle of operation and advantages of a vacuum bomb
It is believed that a vacuum bomb created with the latest technology can compete with a nuclear one. The fact is that instead of TNT, a gas substance is used here, which is several dozen times more powerful. The high-power aircraft bomb is the most powerful vacuum bomb in the world, which is not a nuclear weapon. It can destroy the enemy, but at the same time houses and equipment will not be affected, and there will be no decay products.
What is the principle of her work? Immediately after dropping from the bomber, the detonator fires at a certain distance from the ground. The body is destroyed and sprayed by a huge cloud. When mixed with oxygen, it begins to penetrate anywhere - into houses, bunkers, shelters. Burnout of oxygen forms a vacuum everywhere. When dropping this bomb, a supersonic wave is produced and a very high temperature is formed.
Difference between the American and Russian vacuum bombs
The differences are that the latter can destroy the enemy, even in the bunker, using the appropriate warhead. During an explosion in the air, a warhead falls and hits the ground hard, burrowing to a depth of 30 meters. After the explosion, a cloud forms, which, increasing in size, can penetrate into shelters and already explode there. American warheads begin with ordinary trotyl, so they destroy buildings. A vacuum bomb destroys a specific object, as it has a smaller radius. It does not matter which bomb is the most powerful - any of them delivers an incomparable destructive blow that strikes all life.
H-bomb
The hydrogen bomb is another scary nuclear weapon. The combination of uranium and plutonium generates not only energy, but also temperature, which rises to a million degrees. Isotopes of hydrogen combine into helium nuclei, which creates a source of colossal energy. The most powerful hydrogen bomb is an indisputable fact. It is enough to imagine that its explosion is equal to the explosions of 3,000 atomic bombs in Hiroshima. Both in the USA and in the former USSR, one can count 40 thousand bombs of various capacities - nuclear and hydrogen.
An explosion of such ammunition is comparable to the processes that are observed inside the Sun and stars. Fast neutrons split the uranium shells of the bomb with great speed. Not only heat is released, but also radioactive fallout. Up to 200 isotopes are counted. The production of such nuclear weapons is cheaper than nuclear, and its effect can be enhanced as many times as necessary. This is the most powerful detonated bomb that was tested in the Soviet Union on August 12, 1953.
Aftermath of an explosion
The result of a hydrogen bomb explosion is triple in nature. The very first thing that happens is a powerful blast wave. Its power depends on the height of the explosion and the type of terrain, as well as the degree of transparency of the air. Large fire hurricanes can form that do not calm down for several hours. And yet, the secondary and most dangerous consequence that the most powerful thermonuclear bomb can cause is radioactive radiation and contamination of the surrounding area for a long time.
Radioactive residues after the explosion of a hydrogen bomb
In an explosion, a fireball contains many very small radioactive particles that linger in the atmospheric layer of the earth and remain there for a long time. When in contact with the ground, this fireball creates hot dust, consisting of decay particles. First, a large settles, and then a lighter one, which, with the help of the wind, spreads hundreds of kilometers. These particles can be seen with the naked eye, for example, such dust can be seen in the snow. It can be fatal if anyone is nearby. The smallest particles can be in the atmosphere for many years and so "travel", flying around the planet several times. Their radioactive radiation will become weaker by the time they fall out in the form of precipitation.
In the event of a nuclear war using a hydrogen bomb, infected particles will destroy life within a radius of hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter. If a superbomb is used, then an area of several thousand kilometers will be polluted, which will make the land completely uninhabited. It turns out that the most powerful bomb in the world created by man is capable of destroying entire continents.
Thermonuclear bomb "Kuzkina mother". Creature
Bomb AN 602 received several names - “Tsar bomb” and “Kuzkina mother”. It was developed in the Soviet Union in 1954-1961. She had the most powerful explosive device for all the time of the existence of mankind. The work on its creation was carried out for several years in a highly classified laboratory called "Arzamas-16." A 100 megaton hydrogen bomb is 10,000 times the power of a bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Its explosion is capable of erasing Moscow from the face of the earth in a matter of seconds. The city center would easily evaporate in the literal sense of the word, and everything else could turn into the smallest rubble. The most powerful bomb in the world would erase New York with all the skyscrapers. After him there would have remained a twenty-kilometer molten smooth crater. With such an explosion, it would not have been possible to escape by going down the subway. The entire territory within a radius of 700 kilometers would receive destruction and become infected by radioactive particles.
Explosion of “Tsar-bomb” - to be or not to be?
In the summer of 1961, scientists decided to test and observe the explosion. The most powerful bomb in the world was supposed to explode at a training ground located in the very north of Russia. A huge area of the landfill covers the entire territory of the island of Novaya Zemlya. The scale of the defeat was to be 1,000 kilometers. In the explosion, industrial centers such as Vorkuta, Dudinka and Norilsk could remain infected. Scientists, having grasped the scale of the disaster, took up their heads and realized that the test was being canceled.
There was no place for testing the famous and incredibly powerful bomb anywhere on the planet, there was only Antarctica. But on the icy continent, too, it failed to carry out an explosion, since the territory is considered international and obtaining permission for such tests is simply unrealistic. I had to reduce the charge of this bomb by 2 times. The bomb was still blown up on October 30, 1961 in the same place - on the island of Novaya Zemlya (at an altitude of about 4 kilometers). During the explosion, a monstrous huge atomic mushroom was observed, which rose up 67 kilometers, and a shock wave circled the planet three times. By the way, in the Arzamas-16 museum, in the city of Sarov, you can watch the newsreel of the explosion on an excursion, although they say that this spectacle is not for the faint of heart.