How much is 1 gigaton of TNT?

Technically speaking, a gigaton is a metric unit of mass, equal to 1 billion metric tons, 1 trillion kilograms, or 1 quadrillion grams.

How powerful is 1 gigaton of TNT?

Similarly, a 1 megaton weapon would have the energy equivalent of 1 million tons of TNT. One megaton is equivalent to 4.18 × 10¹⁵ joules. In evaluating the destructive power of a weapons system, it is customary to use the concept of equivalent megatons (EMT).

How powerful is a 1 gigaton bomb?

A USAF document mentions that a gigaton-yield nuclear weapon detonated in space at 150km altitude could deliver a thermal pulse to the ground sufficient to set 28,500 km^2 on fire (18x London's area), without further radiation or fallout.

How much damage would a gigaton of TNT do?

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.

What would a 10 gigaton bomb do?

A single 10-megaton bomb, though, could destroy entire metro areas, subjecting over a thousand square miles to a crushing blast wave and searing heat, easily producing casualties in the millions. The radioactivity produced would also be multiplied many hundreds of times, creating the possibility of vast contamination.

Crazy Cold War Concepts #3 Gigaton Bomb

Is there a 1 gigaton bomb?

There is no theoretical upper limit for a nuke, though it gets much more difficult to build nukes once they get above a certain size, say, perhaps 100 -200 megatons. The biggest nuke ever built was the Russian Tsar Bomba, with a yield estimated of between 50–57 megatons.

How many tons of TNT does it take to make a nuke?

The Nature of an Atomic Explosion. The most striking difference between the explosion of an atomic bomb and that of an ordinary T.N.T. bomb is of course in magnitude; as the President announced after the Hiroshima attack, the explosive energy of each of the atomic bombs was equivalent to about 20,000 tons of T.N.T.

What would 1 ton of TNT do?

The explosion of one ton of TNT releases approximatly 4.2 × 10 ¹² joules of energy; for comparison, it takes almost 6.0 ×10 ⁴ joules to warm up a cup of coffee. The Trinity test, a plutonium fueled bomb had an estimated yield of 21 kilotons, and left a crater 2.9 meters deep and 335 meters wide.

How much TNT is a Tsar bomb?

With a yield of 50 megatons of TNT, Tsar Bomba was the culmination of a number of hydrogen bomb tests conducted throughout this time by both the Soviet Union and the United States.

What would a 1 gigaton nuke do?

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.

Can Tsar Bomba destroy Earth?

But assuming every warhead had a megatonne rating, the energy released by their simultaneous detonation wouldn't destroy the Earth. It would, however, make a crater around 10km across and 2km deep. The huge volume of debris injected into the atmosphere would have far more widespread effects.

Does a 100mt bomb exist?

The initial three-stage design of Tsar Bomba was capable of yielding approximately 100 Mt through fast fission (3,000 times the power of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs); however, it was thought that this would have resulted in too much nuclear fallout, and the aircraft delivering the bomb would not have had enough ...

What bomb is big enough to destroy Earth?

Tsar Bomba was primarily designed to cause the world to sit up and take notice of the Soviet Union as an equal,” says Coyle. The original design – a three layered bomb, with uranium layers separating each stage – would have had a yield of 100 megatons – 3,000 times the size of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

What is the largest nuke possible?

It's theoretically possible to build a nuclear bomb more than 100 times as powerful as Tsar Bomba, but it wouldn't at all be practical. Thanks to bans on nuclear testing and an enlightened realization that nuclear weapons existentially endanger all life on Earth, it's unlikely that we would ever see such a thing.

What can a 50 megaton nuke do?

The world's largest nuclear device ever to be set off, the 50 megaton Soviet “Tsar Bomba” – detonated in a remote arctic test site in 1961, creating the most powerful man-made explosion in history – would kill an estimated 5.8 million people if it were dropped on London, according to Nukemap.

Is TNT more powerful than C4?

C4 yields a higher peak pressure than TNT so the weight of C4 that yields a peak pressure equivalent to a given weight of TNT was determined based on the relationship that peak pressure is proportional to heat of detonation [4].

How powerful is 30 tons of TNT?

The energy contained in one megaton of TNT (4.2 PJ) is enough to power the average American household for 103,000 years. The 30 Mt (130 PJ) estimated upper limit blast power of the Tunguska event could power the same average home for more than 3,100,000 years.

What explosive force is equal to 1000000 tons of TNT?

contrast, is frequently expressed in megatons, each unit of which equals the explosive force of 1,000,000 tons of TNT. Hydrogen bombs of more than 50 megatons have been detonated, but the explosive power of the weapons mounted on strategic missiles usually ranges from 100 kilotons to 1.5 megatons.

What would a 10000 megaton bomb do?

It has been estimated that a 10,000-megaton war with half the weapons exploding at ground level would tear up some 25 billion cubic meters of rock and soil, injecting a substantial amount of fine dust and particles into the stratosphere.

How much can one nuke wipe out?

A single nuclear weapon can destroy a city and kill most of its people. Several nuclear explosions over modern cities would kill tens of millions of people. Casualties from a major nuclear war between the US and Russia would reach hundreds of millions.

What can 1 gram of TNT do?

The energy released in an explosion of 1 gram of TNT is approximately 4000 Joules. It is common to measure the power of an explosion by asking how much TNT would be needed to produce an explosion as powerful. This is called a TNT equivalent of an explosion.

How big is a gigaton of TNT?

Just like gigawatt represents a billion watts, a gigaton equals a billion metric tons.

How big was the Tsar Bomba?

The resulting weapon weighed 27 tons, with a length of some 26 feet (8 metres) and a diameter of about 7 feet (2 metres). Although officially known as RDS-220, it acquired numerous nicknames, most notably Tsar Bomba in the West.

How much does 1 tsar bomb cost?

The weapon was originally created for use in the Iraq war at a reported cost of $16 million per weapon.