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.

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.

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.

What would a 10 megaton bomb do?

A 10 megaton blast would create a fireball about 4.8 km and moderate flash burns to 32 km. Accompanying the blast is a burst of neutrons and gamma rays, as well as lingering residual radiation from radioactive fallout.

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.

Crazy Cold War Concepts #3 Gigaton Bomb

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.

What is the blast radius of a 10 ton nuclear bomb?

The air blast from a 1 KT detonation could cause 50% mortality from flying glass shards, to individuals within an approximate radius of 300 yards (275 m). This radius increases to approximately 0.3 miles (590 m) for a 10 KT detonation.

Can a nuclear bomb destroy the US?

Within individual target cities, conditions described earlier for single explosions would prevail. (Most cities, though, would likely be targeted with multiple weapons.) Government estimates suggest that over half of the United States' population could be killed by the prompt effects of an all-out nuclear war.

Where is the safest place in the US during a nuclear war?

Some estimates name Maine, Oregon, Northern California, and Western Texas as some of the safest locales in the case of nuclear war, due to their lack of large urban centers and nuclear power plants.

What would a 50 megaton bomb 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.

What would a 100 megaton bomb do?

It was decided that a full 100 Mt detonation would create a nuclear fallout that was unacceptable in terms of pollution from a single test, as well as a near-certainty that the release plane and crew would be destroyed before it could escape the blast radius.

What is the most powerful nuke in the world?

The Tsar Bomba packed a punch of over 50 megatons, which is the equivalent of 50 million tons of conventional explosives. That's 10 times more powerful than all the munitions expended during World War Two and over 1,500 times the force of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

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.

What is the biggest bomb ever?

Tsar Bomba, (Russian: “King of Bombs”) , byname of RDS-220, also called Big Ivan, Soviet thermonuclear bomb that was detonated in a test over Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961. The largest nuclear weapon ever set off, it produced the most powerful human-made explosion ever recorded.

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.

How far away from a nuke is safe?

The resulting inferno, and the blast wave that follows, instantly kill people directly in their path. But a new study finds that some people two to seven miles away could survive—if they're lucky enough to find just the right kind of shelter.

How many nukes are needed to destroy the world?

As of 2019, there are 15,000 nuclear weapons on planet Earth. It would take just three nuclear warheads to destroy one of the 4,500 cities on Earth, meaning 13,500 bombs in total, which would leave 1,500 left.

How big is a 50 megaton nuke?

The Tsar Bomba's yield was 50 megatons: ten times more powerful than all of the ordnance exploded during the whole of World War II. The mushroom cloud was 25 miles wide at its base and almost 60 miles wide at its top. At 40 miles high, it penetrated the stratosphere.

How big would a 1000 megaton bomb do?

It continues: “The corresponding radius of effect for a 1000 megaton bomb would be 100 miles, that is to say, an area of about 30,000 square miles would be affected and in clear weather would have an even more devastating effect.

Does the neutron bomb exist?

Neutron bombs, or more precisely, enhanced [neutron] radiation weapons were also to find use as strategic anti-ballistic missile weapons, and in this role, they are believed to remain in active service within Russia's Gazelle missile.

How far does a 50 ton bomb go?

(To put it into perspective: The fireball for a 50-megaton weapon has a radius of about 3 miles.

Is there a nukes big enough to destroy the world?

Could a massive bomb do that all by itself? According to Toon, the answer is no. One large bomb wouldn't be enough to cause a nuclear winter. He says in order for a nuclear winter to occur, you'd need to have dozens of bombs going off in cities around the world around the same time.

What can the biggest nuke destroy?

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 if 100 nukes went off at once?

The ash cloud it would create would envelop the planet and prevent sunlight from reaching the surface and creating a global winter which would drop temperatures below freezing for decades. All life on Earth would be extinct. Even the International Space Station would be destroyed thanks to the debris.

What city would get nuked first?

The cities that would most likely be attacked are Washington, New York City and Los Angeles. Using a van or SUV, the device could easily be delivered to the heart of a city and detonated.