You may already be aware of how nuclear weapons can endanger everything in their path.
However, did you know that it can happen on land, underwater, and even in space?
It's worth noting that the effects of explosions in these various locations vary.
The effects of nuclear bombs, when dropped on Earth, might be somehow clear to you now,
but no one knows what will happen if they are launched in space.
Do you have any idea what would happen if nuclear bombs were sent into space?
Not one, but a lot of them?
Isn't it both interesting and terrifying?
For today's video, we will go into that.
So let’s not waste time and let’s get this started!
Well, to start this, it is important to mention that there are many people, aside from me,
that have conducted this study.
In fact, there are several similar studies about this that have been carried out.
One of these was Operation Argus.
This operation happened in August and September 1958, in which a series of US nuclear weapons
were detonated at various altitudes over the Atlantic Ocean.
To be exact, three nuclear warheads were released in this operation in space.
The first two warheads were launched at around 170 kilometers, that’s 105.6 miles and 310
kilometers or 192.6 miles above the Earth’s atmosphere, while the third warhead went off
at a height of 794 kilometers or 493 miles.
However, there is no serious damage since the released shells were too weak.
Moreover, the explosive power of all three W25 nuclear warheads is only 1.5 kilotons
each.
There is also an operation called Starfish Prime, in addition to Argus.
A number of explosives were launched in space during this operation.
The aim of this operation is for scientists to know what could happen if nuclear weapons
were launched in space.
However, scientists have also discovered the effects such an explosion could have on Earth.
On June 20, 1962, the first experiment was done.
At first, there was no problem in releasing the nuclear weapons, however, the Thor launcher
engine malfunctioned which caused the first test to fail.
When it ascended to a height of between 9.1 and 10.7 kilometers or 5.6 and 6.6 miles,
scientists immediately released the rocket and its warhead in the sky for safety reasons.
As a result, debris from the rocket and nuclear weapon fell into the launch site, Johnston
Atoll, wherein effects were severe.
The entire area was contaminated with radioactivity.
After that, it was in 1962 on the 9th of July that the second attempt to launch nuclear
weapons into space happened.
This second experiment was carried out on the same Pacific atoll, wherein a new Thor
rocket and nuclear weapon were set to fly into space once more.
The 1.44 megaton W49 thermonuclear warhead soared to a height of 400 kilometers or about
248.5 miles, and mind you, that is really a high altitude.
So, what do you think happened after this weapon was launched into space?
Well, the explosion was nothing like what would occur if it were released on Earth.
If it detonated on Earth, for example, a nuclear mushroom cloud would appear, but because it
was launched at such a high height where there is almost no air, no radioactive clouds were
formed.
What happened during the explosion, on the other hand, was even more interesting than
the special effects we see in movies.
The explosion caused a powerful electromagnetic pulse since the nuclear weapon was detonated
at a high altitude.
A pulse of this type can disable electronic equipment, electrical appliances, and power
lines in a short-term electromagnetic field.
This means that 300 street lights and other electronic devices that were located within
a radius of around 1500 kilometers or 932 miles from the explosion's epicenter were
affected, as in Hawaii.
Furthermore, an aurora-like glow was visible in the sky in the same vicinity for around
seven minutes as a result of the explosion.
Aside from these, the spacecraft was also damaged, as well as three satellites were
immediately disabled due to the intense electromagnetic pulse.
The explosion also released charged particles, which damaged the solar panels and electronics
of seven other satellites due to their high concentration.
Overall, there is about one-third of the spacecraft in low orbit at the time were destroyed by
the explosion.
All of these experiments taught us that we can't ignore the dangers that nuclear weapons
might cause.
We've seen via these studies that nuclear weapons can have very disastrous consequences
when detonated on Earth or even in space, and what you’ve learned so far isn't even
the worst-case scenario.
That is why, in 1963, a special treaty was created banning the testing of nuclear weapons
on land, at sea, and in space.
However, let us pretend that this treaty does not exist today.
What do you think would happen if all of the world's nuclear weapons were blasted into
space at the same time?
Every year, many countries create strong and destructive weapons, demonstrating that the
global nuclear arsenal is constantly expanding.
Despite this, the number of nuclear weapons in the world seemed to be decreasing as shown
in official statistics.
For instance, there were only 13,865 warheads in the world at the start of 2019, compared
to 14,465 warheads in 2018.
Moreover, only the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan,
North Korea, and, perhaps, Israel make up this arsenal.
Ninety of these warheads are owned by Russia and the United States, while the remaining
warheads were owned by the other countries I’ve mentioned.
However, no one can tell the exact count of the nuclear weapons the planet has.
This is because some nuclear weapons seemed to be missing, while others are not being
counted.
Because of that, let's just use the number 15,000 as the total of all these nuclear weapons.
Let's suppose I'm planning to launch all that nuclear warheads into space.
What would happen now?
Modern nuclear warheads that were launched from strategic carriers have a range of power
from 150 to 550 kilotons.
But today, we wouldn’t be estimating each one's specific power, instead, we’re going
to pick an average.
Let us imagine that every nuclear bomb we deployed into space generates a 350 kiloton
TNT explosion.
You might be wondering if this would create a grand light show in the night sky.
Well, certainly.
However, aside from this light show, we would also be impacted by a strong electromagnetic
pulse.
Do you recall our discussion about the Starfish Prime operation?
Remember that in that operation, about a third of the satellites in orbit and a number of
electrical equipment were destroyed by the 1.4 megaton warhead explosion.
Furthermore, the blast contaminated the entire launch site due to radioactivity.
I decided to calculate the amount of destruction that a 15 000 warhead detonation would cause
using simple mathematics, and it turns out to be really bad.
The explosion with a large number of warheads has the capacity of creating 5250 megatons,
and that’s 3750 times the strength of the warhead launched in Johnston Atoll.
Could you imagine how powerful it is?
How about if the nuclear weapons did not reach a high altitude before being detonated?
That means they could explode at 400 kilometers or 248 miles above the planet, which would
cause the deactivation of every active satellite.
Keep in mind that there are currently more than 2,000 satellites in orbit and that the
International Space Station (ISS) is at this exact altitude, making it become affected
as well.
The ISS crew's chances of survival are slim to none.
This is because of two reasons.
The first one is that all of the onboard electronics would be damaged, so they couldn’t make
use of it.
The second reason is that nothing could stop gamma radiation from spreading in an airless
space.
What do you think would happen to the Earth's inhabitants because of this explosion?
Electronics that can be found within a radius of 1500 kilometers or about 932 miles from
the epicenter of an explosion that would generate 1.4 megatons would be severely damaged.
Moreover, a 5250 megaton bomb has the capacity to destroy all equipment that lies within
a radius of five million six hundred twenty-five thousand kilometers or approximately three
million and five hundred thousand miles.
Since our planet's radius is six thousand three hundred seventy-one kilometers, that
only means that the destruction zone would be 883 times greater than the mentioned operations.
To put it simply, such a large-scale explosion would destroy all of the Earth's electronic
equipment.
And if you’re thinking that this is the worst that may happen, well it isn’t since
there's always the danger that falling radioactive material will poison the land.
You might be considering launching the warheads from a distance away from Earth to lessen
the effects of the explosion on the planet.
However, all of our current spacecraft that are used for launching are currently intended
for missions to low earth orbit.
Saturn 5, which was part of the historic moon landing, is the only exception to this.
However, creating such equipment identical to Saturn 5 is costly, and no one is likely
to be able to achieve the necessary number of nuclear weapons I’ve used in this experiment.
What do you think about this experiment?
Given a chance would you launch that amount of warheads into space?
Tell us in the comments!
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