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Speaker 1: Hey, Katie, what's the biggest thing that you've ever seen

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Speaker 1: blow up?

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Speaker 2: Technically soup that I microwaved too high, But I've always

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Speaker 2: wanted to see one of those building demolitions.

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Speaker 1: Oh, that does sound fun. I'd love to see you

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Speaker 1: blow up soup or watch a building get exploded. I

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Speaker 1: wonder if they sell tickets to those events.

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Speaker 2: I hope they go on tour, and I hope they

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Speaker 2: come to my city. What about you, what is the

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Speaker 2: biggest explosion that you have seen?

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Speaker 1: Well, there was the time that I made a strawberry

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Speaker 1: smoothie without putting a lid on the blender and I'm

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Speaker 1: still cleaning up strawberry in the kitchen years later. But

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Speaker 1: I did once see a shoe store explode when an

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Speaker 1: air and firework hitted on New Year's Eve. It was crazy.

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Speaker 1: You could feel the heat from blocks away.

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Speaker 2: That's crazy, that's amazing. I'm sure you were going to

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Speaker 2: say something more dramatic, though.

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Speaker 1: More dramatic than a flaming shoes door, but.

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Speaker 2: I thought so you grew up in Los Alamos, Like,

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Speaker 2: isn't that the home of the atomic bomb?

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Speaker 1: It is, but we don't just like set them off

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Speaker 1: on holidays.

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Speaker 2: That seems like a shame.

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Speaker 1: I guess you could say we've kind of blown it.

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Speaker 2: You didn't blew it, and that's the problem.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor

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Speaker 1: at UC Irvine, and I hope to never be near

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Speaker 1: a nuclear explosion.

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Speaker 2: I am Katie Golden. I host the podcast Creature Feature,

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Speaker 2: and I hope there's never a nuclear explosion anywhere ever, space, Earth,

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Speaker 2: what have you? It seems like a bad sign of

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Speaker 2: things to come.

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Speaker 1: Are you saying that nukes can never be used for good?

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Speaker 1: You're not aware of the Peacetime nuclear weapons program or

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Speaker 1: the design of the Orion spaceship, which literally uses nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapons blowing up behind it in order to propel it forward.

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Speaker 2: I mean, if you're basically gonna do big space farts

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Speaker 2: with nukes to make your spaceship go, I'll make an exception.

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Speaker 1: All right. We have already broken down your barriers here

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Speaker 1: and so welcome to the podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explain

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Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio in which we dive

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Speaker 1: deep into everything that happens in the universe, how it

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Speaker 1: all works, how it all began, how it all might end,

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Speaker 1: and how humans might bring about their own demise.

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Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of life on Earth. I love

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Speaker 2: all the animals on Earth, love all the plants, and

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Speaker 2: the humans, most of them, ninety nine percent of humans.

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Speaker 2: And you know, I have a lot of nuclear anxiety

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Speaker 2: when it comes to the planet Earth, because I don't

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Speaker 2: want one going off and you know, destroying a bunch

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Speaker 2: of stuff, radiating things, maybe causing a new ice age

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Speaker 2: with the clouds of debris. But I guess if it's

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Speaker 2: blown up in space, I'm a little less worried.

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Speaker 1: Well, this to me is a really interesting area because

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Speaker 1: it brings together the sort of fascinating progress we make

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Speaker 1: in physics as we start to understand the way the

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Speaker 1: universe works, what the forces are that underlie everything, how

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Speaker 1: they weave themselves together to make our reality. Understanding that

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Speaker 1: also gives us new power, the power to use that

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Speaker 1: knowledge to develop new technologies, which of course can be

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Speaker 1: good in peace time, like transistors and iPhones, but also

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Speaker 1: can be used to make weapons of mass destruction that

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Speaker 1: are pointed at civilian populations for political gain. And so,

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Speaker 1: while we like on this podcast to think about the

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Speaker 1: physics side of it, the scientific edge of knowledge, how

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Speaker 1: we can always push that forward, and we generally think

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Speaker 1: about that knowledge as purely good as sausfying our curiosity

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Speaker 1: is scratching our itch that wonders about how the universe works.

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Speaker 1: It's not possible to really live in a bubble and

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Speaker 1: pretend that that knowledge can't be used in all sorts

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Speaker 1: of ways that the original scientists who worked on it

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Speaker 1: aren't in control of. Personally, I did grow up in

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Speaker 1: Los Alamo's home in the Manhattan Project in Los Almos

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Speaker 1: National Laboratory, where weapons projects are ongoing to this day,

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Speaker 1: and both of my parents worked at the lab and

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Speaker 1: worked on weapons related projects. What exactly they did, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't know. I will never know, because

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Speaker 1: I don't have particular rants to know such secrets. But

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Speaker 1: such power over the universe comes with real responsibility.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I remember that a lot of these

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Speaker 2: scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project became very anti

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Speaker 2: nuclear proliferation. You know. It's it's something that I think

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Speaker 2: people who really understand the devastating power of nukes also

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Speaker 2: are very much opposed to uncontrolled proliferation of dukes. I

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Speaker 2: don't think it's something where scientists are There's a bunch

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Speaker 2: of mad scientists who really just want to blow up

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Speaker 2: the planet. I think most of the scientists who really

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Speaker 2: understand this stuff are also probably pretty anxious and would

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Speaker 2: like a world with fewer nukes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I do know that my mother worked on

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Speaker 1: nuclear non proliferation programs, ways that you can detect nuclear

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Speaker 1: fuel and nuclear explosions, et cetera. But my father definitely

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Speaker 1: worked on the weapons side of it. And I asked

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Speaker 1: him once, not, of course, like tell me some nuclear secrets,

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Speaker 1: but how do you feel about working on the design

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Speaker 1: of huge weapons that are in the end pointed at

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Speaker 1: civilian populations. And you know, back in the eighties when

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Speaker 1: he started that job, it was a different era. We

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Speaker 1: were still in the Cold War and developing our nuclear capabilities.

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Speaker 1: Sort of felt patriotic. Back then, it felt like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: you're contributing to your country, you're protecting us, you're defending us.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it's morally crisp and clean. I

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Speaker 1: certainly chose to do particle physics because it has no

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Speaker 1: weapons applications, and nobody's ever use my research to kill anybody.

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Speaker 2: Not yet, they haven't yet. Give me a pen and

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Speaker 2: a piece of paper, I'll come up with something that's.

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Speaker 1: Right, The Higgs Boson bomb by Katie goldd Well. Nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapons are very powerful and very dangerous, and they have

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Speaker 1: also captured the public imagination and I get a lot

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Speaker 1: of interest in our podcast email box about nuclear weapons.

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Speaker 1: People wonder what would happen if you dropped the nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapon into the Sun, or could we really use nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapons to blow up the polar ice caps on Mars

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Speaker 1: and to make more atmosphere? Or what exactly happens when

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Speaker 1: you drop a nuclear weapon in X? Basically I get

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Speaker 1: these questions where X is anything? And so we're starting

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Speaker 1: a new series of podcasts titled what Happens if You

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Speaker 1: Explode a Nuke in Blank? And we're going to explore

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Speaker 1: everywhere you can imagine putting a nuclear weapon.

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Speaker 2: So today, where are we exploding that nuke?

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Speaker 1: Well, we're not putting that nuke in any sort of

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Speaker 1: biological locations. We're mostly going to focus on the physics locations.

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Speaker 1: And today on the podcast, we'll be answering the question

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Speaker 1: what happens if you explode a nuke in space?

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Speaker 2: So we are definitely cordoning off any of the space whales,

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Speaker 2: any of the space jellyfish, any kind of free floating

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Speaker 2: space creatures that might be in the way of this nuke,

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Speaker 2: and presumably we're exploding it just in space space right

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Speaker 2: like where there's not too much around, just pure.

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Speaker 1: Space, just pure space exactly. And I think this question

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Speaker 1: is super fascinating from a scientific point of view, because

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Speaker 1: mostly what we know and what we imagine about nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapons comes from the interaction of the nuclear blast with

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere or with the Earth, those shockwaves, and that

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Speaker 1: doesn't happen in space. So we'll go in detail through

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Speaker 1: exactly what does happen in a nuclear explosion and how

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Speaker 1: that propagates through space when it's not surrounded by a

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Speaker 1: cocoon of air. This also the really fascinating political and

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Speaker 1: sort of militaristic side of it, as humanity tries to

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Speaker 1: build a space based civilization. Space war is a big question,

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Speaker 1: and so like understanding what happens when you blow up

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Speaker 1: a nuke in space from a sort of political or

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Speaker 1: military strategic point of view is also really interesting and important.

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Speaker 2: Could we go somewhere in the universe and not put

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Speaker 2: wars in there?

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Speaker 1: I think only if we don't bring the humans right,

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Speaker 1: the wars come with the humans.

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Speaker 2: I think only puppies should go to space so that

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Speaker 2: don't start any wars.

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Speaker 1: But that's also a really fascinating question. You see in

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Speaker 1: a lot of science fiction novels human civilization spread out

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Speaker 1: through the galaxy, or humans and aliens spread out through

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Speaker 1: the galaxy able to access all these vast resources, and

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Speaker 1: yet still fighting right, still having wars, and I wonder

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Speaker 1: if that's really true. I often pose that question to

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Speaker 1: our science fiction author guests, like, what are these people

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Speaker 1: fighting about? There's essentially limitless resources. Like you want water,

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Speaker 1: go to Neptune, it's basically a planet of water. You

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Speaker 1: want gold, there's like enormous blobs gold out there. Platinum

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Speaker 1: like this asteroid's made of platinum. If you need something,

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Speaker 1: don't come kill us for it, just go get it.

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Speaker 1: If you want energy, like the Sun is out there

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Speaker 1: dumping out energy, it seems to me that once you

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Speaker 1: make it to space, I don't know why people would

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Speaker 1: still be having wars unless they're just fundamentally grumpy.

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Speaker 2: That could be. I think that if you have resources

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Speaker 2: spread out relatively fairly, right, like you don't have a

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Speaker 2: space king that's hoarding all the Neptune water for himself,

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Speaker 2: that yeah, it would make sense that there would be

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Speaker 2: fewer wars because I think when people have a lot

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Speaker 2: of resources, they have a good quality of life, why

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Speaker 2: would they want to go to war? You know, what

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Speaker 2: would be the purpose for the everyday person to risk

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Speaker 2: it all for war? Again, if we have like space monarchies,

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Speaker 2: then yeah, there might be some wars.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, there are some really interesting science fiction explorations

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Speaker 1: of this, like the Culture series and other like post

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Speaker 1: scarcity novels where basically everybody has everything they ever want.

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Speaker 1: You just ask for something and you get it, and

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Speaker 1: they explore like what would life be like in that situation. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: back to the topic of today's podcast, we are not

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Speaker 1: yet there. We are not yet in outer space living

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Speaker 1: among the riches where everybody gets their own platinum throne. Instead,

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Speaker 1: we're still down here on Earth and wondering what would

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Speaker 1: happen if you blew up a nuclear weapon in space?

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Speaker 1: And so, as usual, I pulled our listeners to hear

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Speaker 1: what they thought might happen in this scenario. If you

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Speaker 1: would like to participate in this segment of the podcast

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Speaker 1: giving your informed or uninformed answers for us to hear,

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Speaker 1: please don't be shy write to me two questions at

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Speaker 1: Danielandjorge dot com. So think about it for a minute.

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Speaker 1: Do you know what would happen if we blew up

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Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb in space? Here's what our listeners had

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Speaker 1: to say, probably.

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Speaker 3: Something very similar to what happens if you explode a

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Speaker 3: nuclear bomb not in space. A lot of energy is released.

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Speaker 3: Basically it's what the Sun is doing, so it's just

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Speaker 3: a bunch of energy pouring out into space.

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Speaker 4: I think that exploding a nucleipon in space would have

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Speaker 4: very little effect. It would be a pretty clean explosion.

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Speaker 4: If there're at some radio active particles, but there's loads

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Speaker 4: of them flying around in space anyway, so essentially I

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Speaker 4: have no concerns.

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Speaker 5: Go for it.

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Speaker 6: So if I understand right how a nuke works, it

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Speaker 6: requires a chain reaction between the atoms of our atmosphere,

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Speaker 6: So in deep space without atmosphere, it will have no effects.

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Speaker 7: You'd see a big, huge round flash, blinding flash of light,

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Speaker 7: and then you wouldn't hear anything, I guess because it's

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Speaker 7: the vacuum of space. And then as soon as all

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Speaker 7: the the fuel, the hydrogen was or uranium or plutonium

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Speaker 7: was gone, it should be done. And I don't think

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Speaker 7: it's any debris, because there's no like that start all

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Speaker 7: lighted up.

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Speaker 8: Is this an atomic bomb or a hydrogen bomb? I

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Speaker 8: think either way. I think you just make a tiny

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Speaker 8: little sun for a second, and then that much would happen,

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Speaker 8: except for some more radiation in space.

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Speaker 1: I assume it would just sort of do the same

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Speaker 1: thing it does here without a shock wave.

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Speaker 9: I believe that unless it's something close or it is

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Speaker 9: something to you know, to a planet, or maybe close

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Speaker 9: to I don't know, like a nebula, maybe it will

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Speaker 9: you know, push away that. But other than that, maybe

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Speaker 9: the only thing in space that will happen, if you know,

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Speaker 9: if it's in the vacuum space, it will create maybe

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Speaker 9: a little bit of a gravitational waves maybe, I don't know.

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Speaker 5: Well, you won't get a mushroom cloud, that's for sure,

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Speaker 5: because that only happens in the atmosphere. So when a

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Speaker 5: nuclear explosion happens, I believe that it releases basically lots

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Speaker 5: and lots of radiation in the form of photons and

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Speaker 5: the radioactive particles. So I imagine like a big bright

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Speaker 5: ball of light that will flash for a second and disappear.

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Speaker 10: I would suppose that the nuclear bomb would still explode,

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Speaker 10: and having nothing for the explosion too press back against.

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Speaker 10: I would expect that the explosion would be equal in

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Speaker 10: all directions, and that the residual matter would fly out

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Speaker 10: in all directions equally.

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Speaker 2: That's a lot of different answers, really interesting ideas. I

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Speaker 2: think the main thing people are thinking of, like it

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Speaker 2: in space, Right, you don't have atmosphere, you don't have air,

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Speaker 2: so you're not going to have the things that air

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Speaker 2: and atmosphere provides, like say a shock wave or sound.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's basically like a little sun in space. Is

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Speaker 1: a great little argument. There was somebody who said something

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Speaker 1: about how it requires a chain reaction in the atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: so in space it'll have no effect, which I think

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Speaker 1: might have some misunderstanding of how a nuclear weapon works.

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Speaker 1: But on the whole, yeah, these are great answers.

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Speaker 2: Well, how I think nuclear explosions work is you take

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Speaker 2: it at them and you get a little axe, very

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Speaker 2: sharp ax, and Y split it in half and that

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Speaker 2: releases a bunch of energy in floats.

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Speaker 1: Tell me I'm wrong, You're wrong, although you could be wronger,

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Speaker 1: I mean there is some elevation that is correct. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: there's two ways to make a nuclear explosion. One is

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Speaker 1: fission and one is fusion. Fission is when you're cracking

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Speaker 1: a big, heavy atom open. So you have like uranium

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Speaker 1: or something which already is on the verge of breaking apart,

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Speaker 1: and you take a little ax, which in this case

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Speaker 1: is a neutron, and you shoot it at the uranium

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Speaker 1: and it breaks open and it makes more neutrons, and

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Speaker 1: those neutrons fly out and hit other uranium atoms, which

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Speaker 1: then crack open and release energy and more neutrons, and

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Speaker 1: then you get this chain reaction. And so if your

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Speaker 1: axe is basically a tiny little neutron axe, then maybe

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Speaker 1: that works. And actually isn't. Thor's hammer supposed to be

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Speaker 1: made out of neutron star so there's already a precedent

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Speaker 1: there for like tools made of neutrons.

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Speaker 2: I knew Marvel was scientifically accurate in every way. That's

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Speaker 2: the fission part, where you have a bunch of un

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Speaker 2: stable large atoms being hacked apart by neutrons, and then

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Speaker 2: that interurn releases more neutrons than that hacks apart other

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Speaker 2: unstable atoms you've mentioned, though, there's a fusion one as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, so that's fission. And the design of a

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Speaker 1: fission bomb is actually quite interesting, like the way you

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Speaker 1: get that to blow up, because if you just have

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Speaker 1: a bunch of uraniums sitting around, it's not going to

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Speaker 1: have a chain reaction unless it has enough density, like

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Speaker 1: you pack those things dense enough, then it's going to

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Speaker 1: blow up. But what you want in a bomb is

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Speaker 1: something that blows up when you want it to, not

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Speaker 1: just like when you build it right. You want something

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Speaker 1: like a fuse, and so you need a controlled explosion.

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Speaker 1: And so what they do is they have two pieces

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Speaker 1: of uranium, both of which do not have enough mass

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Speaker 1: to blow they are subcritical masses. And then what happens

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Speaker 1: in the bomb is you basically smash those two together,

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Speaker 1: combine them together to make a super critical mass when

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Speaker 1: they can actually trigger this runaway effect and cause the explosion.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes they even have like a little trigger like

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Speaker 1: a pellet of polonium or rialium or something to get

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Speaker 1: the first neutrons going. But you're right, that's all fission.

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Speaker 1: And so the first bomb that was ever developed and

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Speaker 1: was blown up in Alamagordo, New Mexico, not too far

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Speaker 1: from where I grew up, was a fission bomb. But

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Speaker 1: there's another much more powerful nuclear process that we now

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Speaker 1: have a handle on, and that is fusion. Fusion is

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Speaker 1: the opposite. Instead of breaking up a big heavy atom

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Speaker 1: to release energy, you're sticking two light atoms together to

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Speaker 1: make a heavier one. So two protons, for example, come

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Speaker 1: together to make helium. It's actually a little bit more complicated.

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Speaker 1: You end up with like multiple protons making multiple helium nuclei.

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Speaker 1: But squeezing light atoms together to make heavier ones releases energy,

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Speaker 1: just like chopping up heavier atoms to make lighter ones

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Speaker 1: releases energy.

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Speaker 2: You mentioned that the fusion bombs are more powerful. Why

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Speaker 2: is that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. And people also wonder like

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Speaker 1: why is it that when you stick light materials together

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Speaker 1: to make heavier ones you release energy, and if you

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Speaker 1: break up heavier ones to make lighter ones, you release energy.

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Speaker 1: And the answer to both questions just comes from the

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Speaker 1: sort of energy structure of the nucleus. So when you

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Speaker 1: squeeze two protons together to make helium, the way those

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Speaker 1: two protons are bound together by the strong force contains

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Speaker 1: like a deep potential well, sort of like the Earth

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Speaker 1: falling into a gravitational well being captured by the sun.

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Speaker 1: Those two protons capture each other, so you need a

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Speaker 1: lot of energy to break that up. Like if you

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Speaker 1: want it to take helium and break it up into hydrogen,

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Speaker 1: you'd have to zap it with a really powerful laser.

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Speaker 1: You have to add energy to that. So the energy

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Speaker 1: that's released from fusion has to do with the difference

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Speaker 1: between the sort of energy structure of two protons that

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Speaker 1: are far apart from each other and two protons that

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Speaker 1: are bound together in two helium. And why that number

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Speaker 1: is big. It just has to do with the strong

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Speaker 1: force and like how powerful it is. On the other

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Speaker 1: side of the spectrum. When you're breaking up uranium into

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Speaker 1: lighter stuff. That's a really big, heavy nucleus and it's

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Speaker 1: a little unstable already because of electromagnetism, which is pushing

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Speaker 1: all those protons apart, and the strong force isn't as

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Speaker 1: powerful because those protons are further or apart from each other,

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Speaker 1: just because the nucleus is like physically getting so big

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Speaker 1: that the strong force isn't as powerful over those distances,

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Speaker 1: So it's a little bit easier to break that up,

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Speaker 1: and the strong force bonds aren't as powerful because the

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Speaker 1: distance is a little bit greater there. So it all

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Speaker 1: has to do with like the structure of the energy

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Speaker 1: levels of the nuclear formation, which you're super complicated.

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Speaker 2: So when something heavy unstable atom, I thought that things

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Speaker 2: like uranium would sort of naturally decay because they are unstable.

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Speaker 2: Why don't they just spontaneously explode when they are decaying?

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Speaker 1: You mean, why don't you get runaway nuclear reactions in nature?

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Speaker 2: Exactly?

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Speaker 1: Actually you can. The crucial thing is just having enough uranium.

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Speaker 1: Uranium is typically dilute out in the world. It's in

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Speaker 1: oxides and it's not very pure. But if you do

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Speaker 1: happen to have a fairly pure uranium deposit, like sitting underground,

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Speaker 1: it will undergo a natural fission reaction. And there's a

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Speaker 1: spot in Africa where they're very certain that a couple

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Speaker 1: of billion years ago there was enough urinea and it

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Speaker 1: started a natural fission reaction and like cooked the rock

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Speaker 1: and like heated up the whole thing. We did a

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Speaker 1: whole podcast episode about it a year or so ago. Uranium,

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Speaker 1: of course, is unstable, and so it decays, and the

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Speaker 1: kind of uranium you need is getting more and more rare,

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Speaker 1: so it's not a likely thing to happen again, like

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Speaker 1: the conditions for natural fission reactions on Earth without human

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Speaker 1: intervention are no longer likely to exist.

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's really interesting. So back to the nuclear bombs,

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Speaker 2: Like what either for a fission bomb or a fusion bomb,

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Speaker 2: Like once you have set off that reaction, what happens

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Speaker 2: like on planet Earth exactly? Like what is the effect

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Speaker 2: the impact of a nuclear bomb?

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Speaker 1: So all bombs essentially are just a rapid release of

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Speaker 1: energy some process which is exothermic, maybe chemical for like

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Speaker 1: dynamite or nuclear for fusion fission bombs, but just a

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Speaker 1: very rapid release of energy. And the crucial things to

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Speaker 1: understand is how that energy is carried. In the case

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Speaker 1: of nuclear weapons, it's not just different carriers of energy

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Speaker 1: relative to chemical weapons, but it's also just much more dramatic. Right,

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Speaker 1: there's like so much more energy released per gram of

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Speaker 1: fuel because it's much more efficient at extracting energy from

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Speaker 1: those bonds. Chemical bonds and dynamite don't have nearly as

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Speaker 1: much energy as the nuclear bonds that we're releasing in

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, So you get different energy carriers flying out

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Speaker 1: and you just get a lot more So the energy

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Speaker 1: comes out in terms of photons, So like infrared photons,

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Speaker 1: visible light photons, UV photons, all of those things. You

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Speaker 1: also get a bunch of particles. You get neutrons, you

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Speaker 1: get electrons, you get protons, you get gamma rays, you

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Speaker 1: get all sorts of crazy things shooting out from the explosion.

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Speaker 2: When I've seen footage of test explosions of a nuclear

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Speaker 2: bomb on like an uninhabited house, it looks like this

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Speaker 2: huge wave of air almost just obliterating the house as

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Speaker 2: it passes through. What's causing that big shockwave a of air?

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Speaker 2: Is that just all these particles being released, this super

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Speaker 2: energy particles, or is there some kind of heat that's

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Speaker 2: also being released from the bomb.

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Speaker 1: So when you detonate a nuclear weapon, you produce all

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Speaker 1: of this energy in various forms, and then you have

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Speaker 1: to ask, like, Okay, the shell of stuff around the

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapon, the air or the water or whatever, is

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Speaker 1: that transparent to these energy carriers? Will it absorb that

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Speaker 1: energy or will it just pass through? And in some

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Speaker 1: cases it's transparent, in some cases it's not. So when

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Speaker 1: it's not transparent, when it's opaque, when it's going to

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Speaker 1: absorb that energy, then all that energy is getting dumped

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Speaker 1: into the air. So, for example, a lot of those

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Speaker 1: photons are absorbed by the air. The infrared, for example,

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Speaker 1: very efficiently absorbed by the air around the nuclear bomb,

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Speaker 1: and that heats up the air. So the energy has

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Speaker 1: been transformed from lower energy photons into temperature of the air.

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Speaker 1: So now that air is super duper hot. You've superheated

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Speaker 1: that air and it expands and then that heats the

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Speaker 1: air around it. And so that's where the shockwave comes from,

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Speaker 1: from the dumping of that energy from the particle that

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Speaker 1: come out of the nuclear weapons into the air itself,

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Speaker 1: and then the air becomes part of the explosion.

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Speaker 2: I see. And so you're saying, unless it's transparent, I

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Speaker 2: would assume that both air and water would absorb energy

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Speaker 2: from a nuke. So it doesn't seem like there'd be

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Speaker 2: anywhere on Earth where you wouldn't have an impact of

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Speaker 2: a nuclear explosion, right.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And so the breakdown is something like around

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Speaker 1: fifty percent of the energy in the air or in

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Speaker 1: the water goes into forming this shock wave. Basically it

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Speaker 1: gets turned into sound. Right, Sound is just matter pressing

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Speaker 1: on other matters compression waves. So like half the energy

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Speaker 1: of the nuclear bomb is absorbed by the matter that

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Speaker 1: surrounds it and then expands that something like forty percent

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Speaker 1: of it are photons to which the atmosphere or the

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Speaker 1: water are mostly transparent, so visible light UV light. Right,

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere is transparent to visible light. That's why we

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Speaker 1: can see each other and we can see the sun

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Speaker 1: because the atmosphere doesn't tend to absorb photons in this

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Speaker 1: range that we can see. And that's of course no accident.

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Speaker 1: That's why we can see these photons. We're evolved in

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Speaker 1: a situation to see these very useful photons. So fifty

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Speaker 1: percent into shock waves, forty percent into basically photons to

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Speaker 1: which the atmosphere of the water is transparent, and then

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Speaker 1: like ten percent of the energy in things like neutrons

436
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,560
Speaker 1: and electrons, like other particles flying out like tiny bullets

437
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 1: with high energy, which can also pass right through the atmosphere.

438
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 2: So is it as hot as like having a little

439
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:32,439
Speaker 2: sun in that area where the bomb went off? Like

440
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 2: how hot does that get?

441
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets to millions of degrees Calvin, It's really

442
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: incredibly hot. It's a huge amount of energy And that

443
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 1: sounds really hot, and it is really hot, and it's

444
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 1: actually hotter than the surface of the Sun, which is

445
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: just a few thousand degrees Calvin, and that's why it

446
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: can release energy like much much higher wavelengths. To remember

447
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:56,359
Speaker 1: that the temperature of an object controls the energy spectrum

448
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: that's released. The hotter it is, the higher the frequency,

449
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 1: the higher energy the radiation, and so that's why nuclear

450
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 1: weapons release a lot of energy in the UV where

451
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 1: we can't even see it because they are so dang hot.

452
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,400
Speaker 2: It is extremely bright as well, right, Like I think

453
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:16,120
Speaker 2: that's something that everyone's kind of aware of, how incredibly

454
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 2: bright a nuclear explosion is, like you said, because the

455
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 2: light passes through the air and then we can see it.

456
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 2: Is it a white light or a yellow light? It'd

457
00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 2: be probably a white light, right.

458
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: It's basically broad spectrum, And so if you're watching a

459
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:31,719
Speaker 1: nuclear explosion, you actually see sort of two flashes. You

460
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,680
Speaker 1: see an initial flash of light because it's very very

461
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,160
Speaker 1: bright and it's very broad spectrum and it looks very white.

462
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 1: But then light that's released later is actually captured by

463
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:42,920
Speaker 1: the shockwave. So you have the first flash which comes

464
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: out very quickly. Then the shockwave comes out and photons

465
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:48,439
Speaker 1: which sort of bump up against the inner side of

466
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: that shockwave. Don't see it as transparent because the shockwave

467
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,720
Speaker 1: has made that air denser and so it's no longer transparent.

468
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: And so until that shockwave dissipates, it's basically blocking the

469
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 1: light from the nuclear wave. And when it does, then

470
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: you see a second flash. You know, it's producing light

471
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:06,440
Speaker 1: the whole time, but it's like momentarily blocked. So you

472
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 1: see this characteristic double peak of gamma radiation when you

473
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: blow up a nuclear bomb here on Earth, at least

474
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 1: underwater or in the air.

475
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 2: The other thing I think people think of when we

476
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 2: picture a nuclear explosion is that characteristic mushroom cloud. Why

477
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 2: does it have such a you know, specific shape, that

478
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 2: mushroom cloud shape. Is that just sort of basic physics

479
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 2: when it comes to an explosion that's large enough, or

480
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 2: is there something else going on.

481
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: That's basic physics from a really large explosion. It's typical

482
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: for nuclear explosions because they are so powerful. You know,

483
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: you have this sudden formation of a really large volume

484
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,959
Speaker 1: of lower density gases, and then you get a buoyant

485
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 1: massive gas which rises rapidly, giving you all this turbulence

486
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: and curling down around the edges. But it can come

487
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: from chemical explosions also if they are big enough.

488
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 2: I see. Interesting. So when you have a nuclear explosion,

489
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 2: you have this huge amount of energy released. It superheats

490
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 2: the air, causes this shock wave, causes a massive amount

491
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 2: of energy to be released in heat in radiation, which

492
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 2: you know is a real sucker punch after the effects

493
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 2: of the bomb, right, Like, you have this radiation in

494
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,360
Speaker 2: the area, and people can get radiation poisoning. But it dissipates,

495
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 2: it explodes, the energy dissipates, it reaks, whatever havoc it's

496
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,399
Speaker 2: gonna reek and then it kind of it settles, the

497
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 2: dust cloud settles, the radiation settles, and then it's it's

498
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 2: a big explosion. And how long does it last? Typically

499
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 2: like the explosion part of a nuclear bomb.

500
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,159
Speaker 1: So the actual reaction is very quick, but you know,

501
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: the shockwave travels at the speed of sound, which is

502
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: being like a thousand feet per second, and so depending

503
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: on the strength of the bomb, it can be like

504
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: thirty seconds to a minute or so before that shock

505
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,199
Speaker 1: wave dissipates. And you're right that the initial danger is

506
00:26:57,280 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 1: very very strong. You have the shockwave, you have the

507
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 1: radiation exposure. Sure, but then this is the lasting effects

508
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,159
Speaker 1: of the fallout. Right, you have released a bunch of

509
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: radioactive material, not all of it has fused or fizzed.

510
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: And also that radiation creates more radioactive material. All these

511
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: high energy neutrons can slam into other stuff, turning them

512
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:18,159
Speaker 1: into radioactive elements, and so the whole area is radioactor

513
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: for a while, and in the cloud they are radioactive

514
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: elements produced. When you have a fission reaction, we know

515
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: that it produces very dangerous toxic waste.

516
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 5: Right.

517
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: That's why nuclear reactors have such a tricky problem to

518
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: deal with. And a nuclear bomb that's not contained at all,

519
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: it's just blown up into the atmosphere, and so the

520
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 1: fallout can be very dangerous and it can drift, right,

521
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: you have wind for example, so it can drift over

522
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles.

523
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's one of the considerations that countries

524
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 2: have when they're thinking of using nukes. It's like, well,

525
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 2: if I use it on my neighbor, that might just

526
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 2: blow right back into my country, which I think is

527
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,480
Speaker 2: in a way good, right, because you should think a

528
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 2: few times before you decide to ease a nuke. But

529
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 2: we should probably take a quick break practice our duck

530
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 2: and cover, and when we get back, talk about what

531
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 2: happens when you explode a nuke in space, not on Earth.

532
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 2: So I've practiced my duck and cover a few times,

533
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 2: which I'm sure would protect me really well if I

534
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 2: was in the heart of a nuclear explosion. My desk

535
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 2: is very sturdy. But we talked about what happens with

536
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 2: a nuclear explosion on Earth. Hopefully we'll never see one ourselves,

537
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 2: but what happens when you explode a nuke in space?

538
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 2: Because space is very different from our planet Earth. It's

539
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 2: missing a few things that we have that are nice

540
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 2: to have here on Earth that protects us in other life,

541
00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: and so it seems like a nuclear bomb would react

542
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:01,479
Speaker 2: differently in space.

543
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really different, and in a fascinating way. The

544
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: actual core reaction, of course, is the same. When the

545
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 1: bomb goes off, it doesn't need the atmosphere or water

546
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: or anything around it in order to actually detonate. It's

547
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: not like a fire where you're using the oxygen from

548
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: the atmosphere to burn. It can go all by itself,

549
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: so it's happy to blow up in space or underwater

550
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: or underground or in the air. So the core reaction

551
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: is no different, and the things that it produces are

552
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 1: the same. So a nuclear bomb in space blowing up

553
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: produces the same spectrum of photon energies and neutron energies

554
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: and electrons, et cetera as the nuclear bomb blowing up

555
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: anywhere else. But of course the immediate surroundings of the

556
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: bomb are very different. And so now instead of having

557
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: some of that radiation immediately absorbed basically by a pillow

558
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: that was surrounded the bomb, a pillow of air or

559
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 1: water or dirt, now there's nothing there, so everything is transparent.

560
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: So all that radiation instead of getting dumped into some

561
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: blanket or some pillow, just flies out, so it all

562
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: stays as radiation. It just flies out like a mini sun,

563
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: as our listeners describe, filling nearby space with very dangerous radiation.

564
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 2: So when I see things like in Star Trek or

565
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 2: Star Wars and they like fire some kind of missile

566
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 2: and then you see this like big explosion with like

567
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 2: a explodey cloud thing, if you're doing it just that

568
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 2: space right, like maybe I guess if you hit a spaceship,

569
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 2: you could get some debris that causes a bit of

570
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 2: a cloud. But if you're just firing out in space.

571
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 2: What exactly does an explosion look like when you're just

572
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 2: it's just happening in empty space?

573
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Those science fiction explosions use cues from

574
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: our intuition. On Earth, you know, where things are loud

575
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: and they are hot, But in space things would be different. Right.

576
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: There's no sound. I mean, there are some particles out

577
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: in space. It's not totally empty, so technically speaking, there

578
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: there is the ability to propagate sound waves, but there's

579
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 1: no sound, and there's also no flames, right, so what

580
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: you would see instead is a very bright flash of

581
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: light because all those particles are just flying out. There's

582
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: nothing burning there. And you say, maybe the ship itself

583
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: would explode if there's like fuel on board or whatever,

584
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: but there's no flame, there's no oxidization effects, no chemical

585
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: burning there. So essentially it's just a very bright pinprick

586
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: of light, extremely bright, like something you should definitely not

587
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 1: look at.

588
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 2: So you don't get that double flash right like you

589
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 2: do with a nuke on Earth, because there's no shockwave

590
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 2: to absorb the light from and kind of prevent it

591
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 2: from reaching your eyes until the shockwave has moved on.

592
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: Exactly, that shockwave is purely a product of a race

593
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: between the photons and the sound wave that's propagetting out.

594
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: But because there is no soundwave, there's no shockwave, there's

595
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: nothing there to absorb that radiation. All the radiation just

596
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: flies out, and so it looks quite different. And what

597
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 1: that means is that nuclear weapons are dangerous over much

598
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: greater distances in space because the radiation is not absorbed,

599
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: and so if a nuclear bomb blows up in space,

600
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,479
Speaker 1: you can get significant radiation damage from it, even if

601
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: you're much further away.

602
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 2: Say we exploded a nuke somewhere in our solar system,

603
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 2: would that radiation potentially hit.

604
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 1: Earth, you still are protected by physics is one over

605
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 1: distance squared law. The same with the Sun is like

606
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: one hundred times dimmer if you're ten times further away,

607
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: or electric fields go down by a factor of four

608
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: if you're twice as far from the charge as all

609
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: these one over distance squared law in physics, which actually

610
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: not hard to understand. Like from a geometrical point of view,

611
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: you imagine, like particles flying out from a nuclear bomb

612
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: or photons flying out from the Sun, the same certain

613
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: number are released, and then as the radius grows, those

614
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: particles are now spread out over a larger and larger sphere,

615
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: and the area of that sphere goes like four pi

616
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: are squared. So as that sphere gets larger, the same

617
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: number of photons or dangerous particles are spread out over

618
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: a larger area. So for any given area of the

619
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: radiation drops like one over the distance squared. And so

620
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: if you're far away from this thing, you'll be safe. Now,

621
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: on Earth, you can be just a couple of miles, two, three,

622
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: four miles from an explosion and be mostly safe from

623
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: the radiation because so much of it is absorbed into

624
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. But in space you've got to be like

625
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: forty fifty sixty miles to be as safe as you

626
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 1: would be on Earth, because essentially there's no protection. Right

627
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: on Earth, you're kind of protected from this nuclear bomb

628
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: by the atmosphere or by the ground, or by the water,

629
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: but in space there's nothing there to shield you.

630
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 2: Right, So is this radiation constantly spreading out or does

631
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 2: it kind of stop dissipating after a while. Does it

632
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 2: keep dissipating forever until it just sort of has equalized somehow?

633
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Well, the initial explosion again is very brief.

634
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: The actual nuclear detonation doesn't last very long, and so

635
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: what you're thinking about is sort of like a pulse,

636
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: like all this radiation in a sphere that's traveling out

637
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: very very fast, in many cases actually at the speed

638
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: of light, and then getting dimmer and dimmer as it goes.

639
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: And so it's really just like a pulse that travels

640
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: through space, washing over things and damaging them.

641
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 2: How long does that pulse last? Does it last like

642
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 2: seconds or hours or years?

643
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: Well, the pulse itself would last for less than a second.

644
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: The actual explosion itself doesn't take very long, so it's

645
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: not like sitting there stewing, continuing to produce pulses of energy.

646
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: It's one very high intensity pulse over a short time.

647
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: But it's various kinds of radiation. Also. There's photons, very

648
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: high energies, and then there's neutrons, of course, and there's

649
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: also electrons. And the electrons can be particularly damaging and

650
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: also kind of fascinating because the electrons are traveling at

651
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 1: very very high speeds and they tend to radiate. So electrons,

652
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: when they move to a magnetic field or anything they

653
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 1: change direction, they radiate photons, and so that creates this

654
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:46,840
Speaker 1: electromagnetic pulse. So all these electrons create this electromagnetic pulse

655
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 1: which can disrupt the flow of electricity or damage any

656
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: sort of electronics. And you see this in science fiction

657
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: all the time, right, that like electronics are blacked out

658
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:56,800
Speaker 1: when there's a nuclear bomb, And that's really true. It

659
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,760
Speaker 1: will create like pulses of energy in electronics.

660
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. So if you're a spaceship, right and

661
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 2: you're riding up and someone decides to blow up a

662
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 2: nuke in front of you, you're really screwed in many

663
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 2: ways because you've just got a huge dose of radiation

664
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 2: and then all of your electronics on your spaceship are

665
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 2: going to get messed up by that EMP pulse. Is

666
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 2: there anything else to look out for if you're on

667
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 2: that spaceship cruising and someone blows up a nuke, Miria, Well.

668
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: If you're on that spaceship, I really hope you have

669
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: a special leadlined room to protect yourself, like we do

670
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,280
Speaker 1: actually on the space station. Because the Sun, of course,

671
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:37,359
Speaker 1: is a huge source of radiation, and solar storms can

672
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: generate EMPs and also other kinds of radiation which can

673
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: damage satellites and people, and so they have a special

674
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: room on the space station where the astronauts can go

675
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: like a panic room when there's going to be like

676
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: a high radiation solar weather event. And so I hope

677
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 1: your spaceship is outfitted with one of those, because if

678
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: somebody blows up a nuclear bomb, it's going to damage

679
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: your ship and also damage you if you're within tens

680
00:35:58,520 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: of miles.

681
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:02,919
Speaker 2: We know that for like when you explode a nuke

682
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:08,320
Speaker 2: on Earth, long after the explosion, it's irradiated everything around,

683
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:11,720
Speaker 2: and depending on how large the explosion is, the nature

684
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 2: of it, like with Chernobyl, the area in that exclusion

685
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 2: zone is still radioactive. Like it's still not necessarily a

686
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 2: safe place to be. It's not like you will immediately

687
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 2: get radiation poisoning and die if you step foot in

688
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 2: the exclusion zone, but you can get sick depending on

689
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 2: how long you're in there and how close you get

690
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 2: to the center where the explosion happened. But what happens,

691
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 2: like with this explosion in space, is there an area

692
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 2: like a sort of point in the middle that continues

693
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 2: to be sort of radioactive or does that without anything

694
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 2: to really absorb it, It just keeps moving until it

695
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 2: hits something that it can be absorbed by Yeah.

696
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 1: Great question. And remember, of course Schernobyl was a nuclear

697
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:00,160
Speaker 1: meltdown of a reactor, not an actual nuclear explosion, so

698
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: nothing blew up, so you still have a lot of

699
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: the fuel and all that stuff there in that same location.

700
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: The larger exclusion zone is because of the weather and

701
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 1: the air that pulled the smoke and the radioactive particles

702
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: further away, so there was never actually a nuclear explosion there.

703
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: And in space, you blow this bomb up, there's not

704
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 1: going to be really anything left in the location of

705
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 1: your detonation to poison people. Everything is going to fly

706
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 1: out because there's nothing stopping it, right, There's nothing holding

707
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 1: it in place at all, So you haven't like poured

708
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 1: radiation into a bunch of nearby dirt or water. Everything

709
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:33,240
Speaker 1: is just going to flow away. So you could probably

710
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: come back in, you know, a month or so after

711
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 1: the nuclear bomb, and the space would be no different

712
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: from when you started. All of the dangerous elements would

713
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: be flying out from the source in lots of directions,

714
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: poisoning people or causing damage as they hit them, But

715
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,479
Speaker 1: the actual location of the nuclear explosion in space isn't

716
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: going to be like affected in any way, have we.

717
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 2: Ever thought to blow up a nuke? And I mean

718
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 2: I'm sure we've thought of it, but have we ever

719
00:37:58,280 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 2: actually done it before?

720
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 1: Oh? Yes, we have actually blown up nuclear weapons in

721
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 1: lots of places. We've blown them up in more Unfortunately,

722
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: we've blown them up above ground, we've blown them up underground,

723
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: and we have actually done a nuclear explosion in space.

724
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: So we don't even have to wonder about what this

725
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: looks like. We know we have pictures.

726
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 2: Well, that sounds terrifying. Let's take another quick break. I'm

727
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 2: gonna watch the little duck and cover turtle learn some

728
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 2: good lessons, and when we get back, I want you

729
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 2: to tell me about blowing up nukes and space, which

730
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 2: apparently we have already done. So we are back to

731
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 2: that little duck and cover turtle. He's got a turtle shell,

732
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 2: but he's also got a helmet redundant. Anyways, now we're

733
00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:59,919
Speaker 2: going to talk about how we actually have already blown

734
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 2: up a nuke in space. It terrifies me that we

735
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 2: may have pissed off some aliens and many generations from

736
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:10,800
Speaker 2: now they'll finally reach us and give us a real scolding.

737
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:14,280
Speaker 2: But Daniel, what happened? Why did we blow up space.

738
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: So nuclear testing started in nineteen forty five with the

739
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: Manhattan Project. The US, of course the first country to

740
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 1: develop these things and to test them and then to

741
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 1: use them in war, where thousands of people were killed horribly.

742
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 1: And since then there's been about two thousand nuclear explosions

743
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: conducted by humans. And in the early days it was

744
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: free for all, there were no laws. People were blowing

745
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: stuff underground, above ground, et cetera. But we pretty rapidly

746
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: realized that blowing up stuff in our atmosphere was a

747
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 1: bad idea, creating radioactive particles and fallout. They could drift anywhere.

748
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: We blew up a bunch of islands, which is terrible,

749
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: destroying people's homes. And so that was in the fifties,

750
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: and things were of course very tense between the US

751
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: and the USSR. The US had stopped atmospheric testing, but

752
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: in the early sixties the USSR started atmospheric testing again,

753
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 1: which was sort of part of a larger political struggle

754
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 1: within the USSR to like stand up to the US.

755
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 1: We really should have like a Russian political expert on

756
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: to tell us about why they started that up again.

757
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: But in nineteen sixty two, the US wanted to know, like, well,

758
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: what happens if you blow up a nuke in space?

759
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 1: They were basically curious, and they didn't want to do

760
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 1: any more atmospheric testing, and so they tested a nuke

761
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:25,839
Speaker 1: over the Pacific in July of nineteen sixty two.

762
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 2: So I'm thinking, like, if we blow it up just

763
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 2: a little bit above our atmosphere, that's not going to

764
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,800
Speaker 2: cut it. Like how far away did we go? Because

765
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 2: you know, it seems like if you're too close you

766
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 2: can still have an impact on the Earth that you're

767
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 2: not going to want.

768
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, if it's too far away, you won't be

769
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:47,760
Speaker 1: able to see it because we don't have great instruments

770
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: in space. If it's too close, then it's basically in

771
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 1: your atmosphere, and said they chose an altitude of two

772
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: hundred and forty miles above the Earth's surface, and they

773
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: launched a one point four mega ton nuke from Johnston Island,

774
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: which is like fifteen hundred kilometers southwest of Hawaii. And

775
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 1: the idea was like, well, if something bad happens, does

776
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: have it happen over less populated areas, I guess, And

777
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 1: people imagine like, oh, that's far enough away from Hawaii

778
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: to not be a big deal, right, And they check

779
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: with a scientist and the sounds just like yeah, right,

780
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:22,480
Speaker 1: no problem. Turns out those scientists were wrong. Oh boy, yep. Scientists,

781
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: especially physicists, can be wrong.

782
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:27,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is a big deal when you're talking about

783
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 2: a nuke and talking about people just trying to live

784
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 2: their lives. And then you're like, but we're curious to

785
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 2: see what this will do. Yikes.

786
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: You can google this thing. It's called starfish prime and

787
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 1: just as we expect, it makes a spherical explosion. So

788
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 1: you don't get like a mushroom cloud that's a product

789
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 1: of blowing up in an atmosphere. You just get this

790
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 1: spherical explosion. It's not completely perfectly spherical, because the nuclear

791
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 1: bomb is not perfectly symmetric. There's like some small differences

792
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 1: in how the explosion happens based on exactly how the

793
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 1: fuel is ranged. But it's almost completely spherical.

794
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 2: It kind of looks like a flower or like a

795
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 2: drawing of a sun where you kind of make the

796
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 2: outsides a little spiky, but yeah, it is pretty round,

797
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:16,280
Speaker 2: and you've got like this bright white point in the middle,

798
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 2: and then you've got sort of a blue corona around it,

799
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 2: and then a larger white corona around the blue. What

800
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 2: is that sort of color difference. Why do you have

801
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 2: that like bright white light and then this blue and

802
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 2: then bright white light again on the outer edges.

803
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's similar to the effects we were

804
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 1: talking about in the atmosphere, that there is some debris

805
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: that comes out of the explosion, and then the radiation

806
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: that's emitted after that is partially absorbed by some of

807
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: that debris, some of those heavier ions that are created

808
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: by the explosion, So you get this multiple effect with

809
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: the products of the explosion then absorb things that are

810
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: later produced in the latter stages of the explosion. And

811
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:55,280
Speaker 1: it was a pretty dramatic event on Earth.

812
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:58,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean where people told this was going to happen.

813
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 1: People were told it was going to happen, and even

814
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: the newspapers were aware, and they kind of advertised it.

815
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:06,280
Speaker 1: There's a headline in the Honolulu Advertiser, which is a newspaper,

816
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:10,720
Speaker 1: which says, in blast night maybe dazzling, good view likely,

817
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 1: And a bunch of hotels in Hawaii had like rooftop

818
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,360
Speaker 1: parties for people to watch this nuclear explosion happen.

819
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 2: I would be in a basement, but what would it

820
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 2: look like to someone on one of these rooftop parties.

821
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,399
Speaker 1: So you can't see the actual explosion the same way

822
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: because of the atmosphere, but there aren't these great pictures

823
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,799
Speaker 1: that people took from Hawaii. And you see all this

824
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: air glow. You see all this red light because the

825
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:38,399
Speaker 1: radiation has hit the atmosphere and it's excited a bunch

826
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 1: of oxygen atoms which then glow. So it's basically like

827
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 1: heated up the atmosphere which then glows in this red light.

828
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 2: I mean that seems spectacular but also maybe kind of

829
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 2: apocalyptic looking. That would scare me.

830
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then after the actual explosion there's a massive

831
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 1: aurora scene for like thousands of kilometers. You know, the

832
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: Northern Lights. These are high energy particles hitting the atmosphere.

833
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: They're mostly funneled up to the Northern and Southern poles

834
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: because of the magnetic field. But when a huge number

835
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 1: of high energy photons hit the atmosphere, they make the

836
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: atmosphere glow and you don't just get red, you get

837
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: greens and blues depending on exactly what it is that

838
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 1: has been like zapped and energized and then re emitted.

839
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 1: And so whereas you don't normally see auroras in Honolulu,

840
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: they had this massive aurora which stretched for thousands of

841
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 1: kilometers over the Pacific.

842
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,360
Speaker 2: Well, maybe worth it to take a chance to accidentally

843
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 2: blow up a bunch of people, But you did mention

844
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 2: that the scientists had not quite calculated this right, So

845
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 2: were people actually in danger here? Like was there some

846
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 2: negative consequences to this?

847
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:48,720
Speaker 1: Well, it like blew out street lights in Hawaii?

848
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So this.

849
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: Electromagnetic pulse that was created went much further than the

850
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 1: scientists thought. I think they didn't realize how much of

851
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 1: that is absorbed by the atmosphere when you blow this

852
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 1: thing up on Earth, or when you blow it up underwater.

853
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 1: And so the radiation effects of this bomb in space

854
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: were much broader than they had anticipated. And so, yeah,

855
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 1: there were effects on Hawaii. They destroyed a bunch of

856
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: satellites that were up in space. Back then, there weren't

857
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: that many satellites. This is the beginning of the space era,

858
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:18,360
Speaker 1: so only like six satellites were destroyed. These days, you

859
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: blew up a nuclear weapon and that kind of location,

860
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 1: you destroyed dozens of satellites, billions of dollars of damage,

861
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: and people were able to see this thing for like

862
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: thousands of miles away. People on Fiji described the light

863
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:31,399
Speaker 1: show as breathtaking.

864
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:34,840
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean, so you mentioned that the radiation spread

865
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 2: out much further than they had suspected. Did that negatively

866
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 2: impact Hawaiians? Did that hurt people on the island or

867
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 2: did it not actually have too much of a human impact.

868
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,240
Speaker 1: It doesn't have very much of a human impact because

869
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 1: fortunately we are under the atmosphere, which is a really

870
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: thick blanket to protect ourselves from a lot of this radiation.

871
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: And so really the only impact in Hawaii was the

872
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,319
Speaker 1: dramatic light show and the pulse from the EMP, which

873
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: damaged some electrical devices and blew out street lights and

874
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 1: dumped a bunch of energy basically in any conductor that

875
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: can absorb electromagnetic energy for hundreds of kilometers, and so

876
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:12,719
Speaker 1: satellights and street lights are basically the only real damage.

877
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: There may also be some very small amounts of radioactive material,

878
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: but distributed over such a large area that doubt has

879
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: really any impact on it, like human life.

880
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 2: Well, it could have gone worse, it could have been.

881
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: Wronger, and actually some scientists were wondering if this was

882
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: going to have a long lasting effect on other features

883
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 1: of nearby space. Remember that near the Earth there are

884
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:38,280
Speaker 1: these huge bands of radiation. They're called the Van Allen Belts,

885
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:41,720
Speaker 1: and they're basically just particles like whizzing around the Earth

886
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: that were discovered in the fifties whence we sent up

887
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: our first space missions. That as you leave the Earth

888
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: you pass through these bands of massive radiation. There's an

889
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:52,319
Speaker 1: inner belt and there's an outer belt. They're not very

890
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: well understood, and at the time they were seen as

891
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: like an impediment to space travel, that if you go

892
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: up into space, you have to survive passage through these

893
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: basically radiation guns. And some scientists were wondering, if we

894
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 1: blow up a nuclear weapon in these radiation belts, maybe

895
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:09,320
Speaker 1: it would like disturb them or dissipate them, though some

896
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: people were sort of hopeful that it would blow up

897
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: the radiation belts, which to me is kind of crazy.

898
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: It's like, before you even really understand these things and

899
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 1: their purpose and their benefits and their detriments, you want

900
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 1: to just like blow them up and see what happens

901
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:21,760
Speaker 1: to life on Earth.

902
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of looking forward and not

903
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 2: looking at the current situation right because you're thinking, like,

904
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 2: let's make space travel easier. But we have this functional

905
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 2: planet that we're pretty cozy on, so you might not

906
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 2: want to mess that up for some kind of future

907
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 2: space highway. I think that it is a lot of

908
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:44,920
Speaker 2: decisions that we make we don't often think about, like,

909
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 2: but how will this impact the planet before we build

910
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 2: this space highway or regular highway? Did it impact these

911
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 2: radiation belts or did it not really have a permanent impact.

912
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: I had basically no impact on the radiation belts, which

913
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: contain an enormous amount of energy which could not be

914
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: affected by one nuclear bomb. But this nuclear explosion did

915
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 1: have sort of shockwaves through the political climate on Earth.

916
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 1: Things cooled down a little bit, and in nineteen sixty

917
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: three they passed a partial Test Ban treaty which prohibited

918
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: all nuclear testing except for underground testing, which was seen

919
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:23,319
Speaker 1: as safer because it really is very well contained. And

920
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:26,320
Speaker 1: so for about thirty years, the US and Soviet Union

921
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 1: did a bunch of underground tests until they were prohibited

922
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six. I still remember my dad traveling

923
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: to the Nevada test site to participate in some of

924
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 1: those tests. So the US was still testing nuclear weapons

925
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 1: into the nineties. We have not blown one up since then.

926
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: The last nuclear test from the US was in the nineties.

927
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 2: It really feels like such a scary time though, during

928
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 2: the Cold War, when you're having all these tests going on,

929
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 2: you wonder about how many close calls we had in

930
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 2: terms of a test going wrong where it actually hurts people,

931
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:02,879
Speaker 2: or a test that happens is misread by like say

932
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 2: that Russians are you know, by the US, and we think, well,

933
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 2: we're being attacked and that starts a whole cascade of nukes.

934
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 2: It feels like this wild West time where we were

935
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 2: just i mean, maybe not playing around with nukes, but

936
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 2: the fact we were doing so many of these tests,

937
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 2: and it feels like we just kind of escaped some

938
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:26,120
Speaker 2: kind of horrible fate by the skin of our teeth.

939
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:28,920
Speaker 1: We certainly did. If you dig too deep into his history,

940
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 1: it's terrifying. There were times when like a flock of

941
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 1: seagulls were mistaken for the launch of a nuclear weapon.

942
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: Another time when like a training tape was accidentally loaded

943
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: into a computer which became convinced that the Russians were

944
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 1: attacking us. It's really terrifying how close we came to

945
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,799
Speaker 1: all out nuclear war several times. And you know, the

946
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 1: US and the USSR haven't tested nuclear weapons since the nineties,

947
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 1: but you know, India and Pakistan detonated nuclear weapons in

948
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 1: the very late nineties, and then of course North Korea

949
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,879
Speaker 1: has done tests fairly recently of nuclear weapons. So it's

950
00:50:00,920 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 1: not like we're out of the woods in terms of

951
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. Nope, yeah, exactly. Israel actually is the only

952
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:10,879
Speaker 1: country we think has nuclear weapons but has never done

953
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 1: a nuclear test that we know of, that we know of.

954
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because at the start of

955
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 2: the Russian Ukraine War, I started following a bunch of

956
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 2: nuclear proliferation experts and sort of people who understood the politics,

957
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 2: who understood the science of nukes, because I was terrified,

958
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,720
Speaker 2: and I'm not gonna say I got less terrified after

959
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 2: hearing what the experts had to say. I think the

960
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 2: knowledge of exactly the kind of circumstances that we were

961
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 2: in and stuff was helpful. Like, even though the Cold

962
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:48,719
Speaker 2: War is over, the fact that there are so many

963
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 2: nukes out there, it's terrifying, so we should probably send

964
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 2: them all the space blaw them all up put them

965
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 2: in space.

966
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:57,399
Speaker 1: I guess if I had to choose where to blow

967
00:50:57,440 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: up nuclear bombs, I probably choose to blow them up

968
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,720
Speaker 1: in space, over the atmosphere or anywhere else on Earth.

969
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: But it is really interesting to understand what happens to

970
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb when you blow it up in space.

971
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:09,720
Speaker 1: It turns out to be quite different from what happens

972
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: in our atmosphere. It doesn't dump that energy and create

973
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 1: a shock wave. It's basically like a little miniature sun,

974
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:17,880
Speaker 1: and so there is no shockwave to hurt you, but

975
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: that radiation will travel much much further and damage things

976
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 1: that are much further away, especially electronics. So let's hope

977
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:28,279
Speaker 1: that we don't end up in a nuclear space war

978
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 1: anytime soon.

979
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 2: And if you're flying your spaceship and you want to

980
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 2: fire some nukes, wear sunglasses.

981
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:37,319
Speaker 1: And be careful microwaving your soup, and put a lid

982
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: on your blender when you make that strawberry smoothie.

983
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:41,280
Speaker 2: All of this is practical advice.

984
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 1: Thanks Katie very much for joining us on this exclusive episode,

985
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,320
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, and thanks to all of our listeners.

986
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: Tune in next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that

987
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio.

988
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:08,400
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

989
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.