Would a nuclear bomb work in a vacuum?

[Lekgolo555]

Would a nuclear bomb work in a vacuum? How would the concussive force and heat transfer without matter? Does it give off enough radiation to generate the kind of heat that would make it a formidable weapon? I know the sun is basically a nuclear bomb, but I am only talking about tactical size nuclear bombs.

 

Stemming off of this question, what is a concussive force? I always hear of something called a blast radius. What kind of energy is the blast? Is it some kind of force like electromagnetism? What comes out of the explosion that does all the harm?

[insane_alien]

yes a nuclear bomb would work but it would mostly be a heat weapon rather than a blasting weapon. there would be almost no concussive force as the only matter available is that of the bomb itself. most of the energy would go into the heat and radiation effects. probably not going to be as effective.

 

concussive force is basically the force the shockwave would hit you with.

the blast radius is the radius from ground zero to the furthest reaches of its destruction.

 

its got all kinds of enrgy in the blast, kinetic, electromagnetic, heat etc. etc.

 

pretty much everything in a nuclear bmb casues harm once its detonated.

[Lekgolo555]

What is the shockwave? is it some other form of energy? What would be an effective weapon of mass destruction in a vacuum. Well nuclear weapons would be effective as long as you hit the target dead on.

[insane_alien]

shockwaves.

 

not to sure what a good WMD would be for a vacuum. depends on what your trying to destroy. a big nuke in a little asteroid would probably be pretty lethal.

[grifter]

ha ha reminds me of the film armageddon

and in answer to your question a shockwave is a nonlinear pressure wave, carrying energy which is able to propagate through a medium ( S L & G ).

Across the shockwave - within the medium it is traveling there is allways an increase in pressure, temperature and density, (which is what you would feel as a shockwave travels "through" you)

hope this helps

[Lekgolo555]

oh so it is just an effect of something rather being something.

[grifter]

you got it,

[Sisyphus]

oh so it is just an effect of something rather being something.

 

Well yeah, but no more than any kind of wave. Sound is "just an effect of something" also.

[soultech]

Ofcourse a nuclear bomb would work in a vacuum, regardless if the device was bassed on fussion, fission or matter/antimater anihilation. However if the device exploded nowhere near anything to be destroyed then the blast would be differant to an terestrial exposion on earth, Because it would consist of only the mass of the fussible material vaporising at millions of degrees and there would be a shock wave but only in the form an equivalant of a very powerfull solar wind. Whereas on earth we vaporise in addition the atmosphere and that works like gasses in a bullet cartrige being heated up in addition to the mass of the devise! With antimatter on the otherhand and its extreamly hard to produce in even microscopic amounts and containment in superconductors is also a MegaTera problem. But let's say a counrty on one side of the earth didnt like another one on the other side of the earth. If the got a 11 tonnes of antimater properly contained safely and launched it into outerspace too impact with our Sun! Then the minor anihilation would go of like a humangus flashcube and completely frizzle their enema. (Remembering that all the energie estimated that shines in one second from our Sun is (11 tonnes converted E=MC^2) and that would give 22 tonnes worth on one side) Now on a somewhhat more serious note, I recall watching i think it was fox news from NY on melbournes Foxtel cable TV. I think they mentioned that someones tracking the spACE-Or-bit of a large ASteroid somthing like 400 miles across that is on a colission course with Earth in something like 2035 whatever. If someone knows anymore information about all that then fill us in. However how would you propose to destroy that 400 mile diameter asteroid with any convential nuclear missle anyone's got. Its simply to big and it may become like fragments of buckshot but because of the asteroid gravitational mass it may start to converge to a 2000mile diameter blob or it may not fractur at all! i don't know, I think we should practice blowing up smaller asteroids nowhere near earth to figure out some mechanisim of self defence from such a collision!

[MolotovCocktail]

I think they mentioned that someones tracking the orbit of a large asteroid somthing like 400 miles across

 

 

I think you mean 400 meters, not miles. An astroid hundreds of miles across would have a noticable affect on Earth's orbit.

[insane_alien]

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news146.html <thats the asterid your talking about. its only 400 meters

 

400 miles would be very very visible.

[bascule]

not to sure what a good WMD would be for a vacuum.

 

Ever heard of Project Orion?

[insane_alien]

not a WMD just a propulsion system that happens to use nukes for thrust.

 

an ionized particle beam would probably be a pretty devastaing weapon in space since you wouldn't lose the charge but i guess it depends on the circumstances and the target

 

i mean, if you have a city inside a large glass sphere then a bullet would be a WMD

[grifter]

thats a good point, a wmd on earth isn't necessarily a wmd on an asteroid. an ionized particle beam sounds like a good idea but it would take a mean piece of kit to produce a beam... not to mention one with a big enough radius to do any serious damage to a 400m asteroid, then there's the problem of aiming the damn thing to hit a crazy spinning dirty snowball, good luck Nasa......

 

what about a chemical oxygen iodine laser, (as modeled by the Boeing YAL-1)

that's capable of knocking out a missile, so perhaps theres hope for the earth yet...

[CPL.Luke]

don't count out nuke yet, when a nuke goes off on earth we feel the kinetic energy in the form of a wave that loses energy to the air behind it, wasting destructive potential.

 

in space you would feel the full blast of the em wave, and if you were close enough fission/fussion fragments. That would easily cause catastrophic damage to a ship. (don't forget that a single crack in the hull caused by a sudden temperature shock could be lethal)

[insane_alien]

yeah, but due to the vacuum of space the total destruction radius is significantly shorter. even for your standard space shuttle.

[MolotovCocktail]

yeah, but due to the vacuum of space the total destruction radius is significantly shorter. even for your standard space shuttle.

 

I'm not so sure about this. A nuclear bomb is so powerful that our atmosphere cannot absorb the blast. It unleashes an EMP due to this (by knocking electrons from the gases in our atmosphere). The fact that the blast wave isn't absorbed is also why the bomb is detonated above the target to increase it's effectiveness

[CPL.Luke]

yeah the energy that hits you would be the same (or greater) to that which would hit you at the same radius on earth. due to the space between you and the detonation not absorbing the energy in the form of heat/breakage.

[Lekgolo555]

So a shockwave is just intense sound right? Does the shockwave do most of the damage?

 

Does the heat from such an explosion transfer mostly from conduction or radiation? Which does more of the damage: conduction of hear of radiated heat? Is the light from a nuclear explosion enough to melt steel?

[insane_alien]

a shockwave isn't like sound. its ALMOST like sound but a shockwave can actually travel faster.

[CPL.Luke]

and the reason why it forms is due to the air around the bomb absoring a tremendous amount of energy from the blast.

[Lekgolo555]

But the shockwave will give off sounds as it is traveling forward right?

[CPL.Luke]

sort of, your ear would interpret it as a sound (think fireworks) however theshock wave itself doesn't give off sound but instead turns into a sound wave once it loses enough energy.

[tauridtrain*]

...

 

what about a chemical oxygen iodine laser, (as modeled by the Boeing YAL-1)

that's capable of knocking out a missile, so perhaps theres hope for the earth yet...

 

Oh, silly boeing....why'd they name it YAL-1 when they had a too perfect acronym in the name. Where art though Airbus-380?

 

would a nuke make the same ultra-bright flash without the presence of atmosphere in a vacuum?

[CPL.Luke]

yes, probably brighter as there would be nothing to absorb it between the blast and you.