Housatonic nuclear fireball 9 Mt

Canal Arequipa - Perú.
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[manuel_k]

It's crazy how we went from muskets to summoning a small sun in just a few decades.

[brugelxencerf]

This is a unique thermonuclear weapon, being almost fission free, yet producing a 10 MT explosion. Most thermonuclear weapons have a fission primary to compress the secondary fusion component, a fission spark plug to heat the secondary, and a natural uranium tamper which undergoes more fission. Wheres Ivy Mike had a 200 KT primary, this one had only an 8 KT primary. That's how effectively it used the x rays to both compress, and ignite, the fusion secondary. The context (1961) was both seeking less dirty fission fall out, and competing in magnitude wit the Soviet Tsar Bomba.

[ChrisZoomER]

I saw the thumbnail and I thought it was the sun, then I read the title and it sent chills down my spine!

[erickanter]

I have to be honest. I would have loved to see this test in person.

[mikehanna]

"Honey, why is the Sun rising in the north?"

[Karl-P]

Majestic. To think that its man made its even more incredible.

[Earth_Luna]

so we went from the first tank ever made to vaporizing the atmosphere with an artificial sun within 4 decades or so

[blueboats]

The last air dropped test, apparently it was an innovative advanced design, sure looks the part

[erickanter]

I find the physics behind nuclear weapons beautiful from the standpoint of how they work.

[BasePuma]

This video really highlights how much these things are like mini stars. Stars are different when you get into technicalities, but at a basic level nuclear weapons are like short lived stars that aren't contained by gravity, so you get a rapid outward acceleration of the atmosphere surrounding the detonation site, which is what we perceive as an "explosion." Stars are constantly fusing hydrogen into helium because of their gravity, which produces a lot of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation of every part of the spectrum from radiowaves to gamma rays, and nuclear weapons do the exact same thing only they produce the heat and energy required for fusion by splitting unstable atomic nuclei, which is fission, and in some bombs the fusion reaction that takes place as a result of the initial fission primer then causes even more fission to occur, but I digress.

That is the energy source that makes main sequence stars - like our sun - possible. It is the same force of nature that makes thermonuclear weapons possible. It's just mass converted to energy.

[notevenreal]

I really like how you can see the characteristic double-flash, after the initial nuclear reaction finishes, the fireball dims, and then gets brighter again as the air around it burns

[normkirk]

Inconceivable that the center of this fireball is around 150 million degrees Fahrenheit for about a tenth of a second.

[Indrid__Cold]

Indeed, the Housatonic device yielded 9.96 megatons, utilizing the "Kinglet" primary, a mere 15 kilotons of the total yield. The resulting explosion achieved 99.9% fusion through the focused primary and layered secondary, known as the "Ripple II" design. If not for the Limited Test Ban, "Ripple II" could have led to a new generation of relatively "clean" thermonuclear weapons. Contemporary thermonuclear weapons rely heavily on secondary fast fission of a U-238 component, offering an economical and efficient means to enhance weapon yield without significant size or weight drawbacks. It does, however, greatly increase the production of U-238 fission products, which can result in substantial radioactive fallout.

[christopherleubner]

The most interesting part is that the air itself gets so hot that it is opaque to the light causing the caractoristic double pulse. A fast bright pulse then a dimming and then when it cools enough the light escapes in a longer lasting brigter pulse.😮

[tommeakin]

_And so it is said that, at the height of their wonder, the old ones brought the stars to earth; their burning wonder to be brought down on their foes. For all their strength and might, they could not overcome the timeless ways of man; the ways that raged in their forefathers and still burns within us. It is said that within only an evening, as the sun set, they learnt that the heavens were not meant for man or the earth. Through the unending, blinding starfire and the ghostly illness that reaped the world that followed, the golden age of man came to it's end._

[manilajohn]

"The discovery of the splitting of the atom has changed everything except our way of thinking. Thus, we drift toward catastrophe beyond comprehension. We shall require an entirely new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive."- Albert Einstein in a 1946 letter to a friend.

[Uajd-hbqs]

“Why don’t aliens make contact with us?”

Average human disagreement:

[Robsay]

We always see the mushroom cloud but it’s really the after effect. This is the real thing. Wow.

[leonwilliams]

I would pay money to see a live test from a safe distance! Maybe even flying from a safe distance.

[johnfranborra]

This footage is so fantastic it could be from a low-budget sci-fi flick. Exactly the impression of totality I had in 2017 at Glendo, WY: as if a monstrous octopus had appeared from behind the moon. Absolutely unworldly, beyond human experience. Perfect soundtrack, by the way.