What harm is a hydrogen bomb? How does a hydrogen bomb work and what are the consequences of the explosion?

Ivy Mike - the first atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb conducted by the United States at Eniwetak Atoll on November 1, 1952.

65 years ago, the Soviet Union detonated its first thermonuclear bomb. How does this weapon work, what can it do and what can it not do?

On August 12, 1953, the first “practical” thermonuclear bomb was detonated in the USSR. We will tell you about the history of its creation and figure out whether it is true that such ammunition hardly pollutes the environment, but can destroy the world.

The idea of ​​thermonuclear weapons, where the nuclei of atoms are fused rather than split, as in an atomic bomb, appeared no later than 1941. It came to the minds of physicists Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller. Around the same time, they became involved in the Manhattan Project and helped create the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Designing a thermonuclear weapon turned out to be much more difficult.

You can roughly understand how much more complicated a thermonuclear bomb is than a nuclear bomb by the fact that working nuclear power plants have long been commonplace, and working and practical thermonuclear power plants are still science fiction.

In order for atomic nuclei to fuse with each other, they must be heated to millions of degrees. The Americans patented a design for a device that would allow this to be done in 1946 (the project was unofficially called Super), but they remembered it only three years later, when the USSR successfully tested a nuclear bomb.

US President Harry Truman said that the Soviet breakthrough should be answered with “the so-called hydrogen, or superbomb.”

Due to the additional uranium, the explosion was twice as powerful as with a conventional atomic bomb. But thermonuclear fusion accounted for only 10% of the released energy: tests showed that hydrogen nuclei were not compressed strongly enough.

Then mathematician Stanislav Ulam proposed a different approach - a two-stage nuclear fuse. His idea was to place a plutonium rod in the “hydrogen” zone of the device. The explosion of the first fuse “ignited” the plutonium, two shock waves and two streams of X-rays collided - the pressure and temperature jumped enough for thermonuclear fusion to begin. The new device was tested on the Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in 1952 - the explosive power of the bomb was already ten megatons of TNT.

However, this device was also unsuitable for use as a military weapon.

For hydrogen nuclei to fuse, the distance between them must be minimal, so deuterium and tritium were cooled to a liquid state, almost to absolute zero. This required a huge cryogenic installation. The second thermonuclear device, essentially an enlarged modification of the George, weighed 70 tons - you can’t drop that from an airplane.

The USSR began developing a thermonuclear bomb later: the first scheme was proposed by Soviet developers only in 1949. It was supposed to use lithium deuteride. This is a metal, a solid substance, it does not need to be liquefied, and therefore a bulky refrigerator, as in the American version, was no longer required. Equally important, lithium-6, when bombarded with neutrons from the explosion, produced helium and tritium, which further simplifies the further fusion of nuclei.

The RDS-6s bomb was ready in 1953. Unlike American and modern thermonuclear devices, it did not contain a plutonium rod. This scheme is known as a “puff”: layers of lithium deuteride were interspersed with uranium layers. On August 12, RDS-6s was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site.

The power of the explosion was 400 kilotons of TNT - 25 times less than in the second attempt by the Americans. But the RDS-6s could be dropped from the air. The same bomb was going to be used on intercontinental ballistic missiles. And already in 1955, the USSR improved its thermonuclear brainchild, equipping it with a plutonium rod.

Today, virtually all thermonuclear devices—even North Korean ones, apparently—are a cross between early Soviet and American designs. They all use lithium deuteride as fuel and ignite it with a two-stage nuclear detonator.

As is known from leaks, even the most modern American thermonuclear warhead, the W88, is similar to the RDS-6c: layers of lithium deuteride are interspersed with uranium.

The difference is that modern thermonuclear munitions are not multi-megaton monsters like the Tsar Bomba, but systems with a yield of hundreds of kilotons, like the RDS-6s. No one has megaton warheads in their arsenals, since, militarily, a dozen less powerful warheads are more valuable than one strong one: this allows you to hit more targets.

Technicians work with an American W80 thermonuclear warhead

What a thermonuclear bomb cannot do

Hydrogen is an extremely common element; there is enough of it in the Earth’s atmosphere.

At one time it was rumored that a sufficiently powerful thermonuclear explosion could start a chain reaction and all the air on our planet would burn out. But this is a myth.

Not only gaseous, but also liquid hydrogen is not dense enough for thermonuclear fusion to begin. It needs to be compressed and heated by a nuclear explosion, preferably from different sides, as is done with a two-stage fuse. There are no such conditions in the atmosphere, so self-sustaining nuclear fusion reactions are impossible there.

This is not the only misconception about thermonuclear weapons. It is often said that an explosion is “cleaner” than a nuclear one: they say that when hydrogen nuclei fuse, there are fewer “fragments” - dangerous short-lived atomic nuclei that produce radioactive contamination - than when uranium nuclei fission.

This misconception is based on the fact that during a thermonuclear explosion, most of the energy is supposedly released due to the fusion of nuclei. It is not true. Yes, the Tsar Bomba was like that, but only because its uranium “jacket” was replaced with lead for testing. Modern two-stage fuses result in significant radioactive contamination.

The zone of possible total destruction by the Tsar Bomba, plotted on the map of Paris. The red circle is the zone of complete destruction (radius 35 km). The yellow circle is the size of the fireball (radius 3.5 km).

True, there is still a grain of truth in the myth of the “clean” bomb. Take the best American thermonuclear warhead, W88. If it explodes at the optimal height above the city, the area of ​​severe destruction will practically coincide with the zone of radioactive damage, dangerous to life. There will be vanishingly few deaths from radiation sickness: people will die from the explosion itself, not from radiation.

Another myth says that thermonuclear weapons are capable of destroying all human civilization, and even life on Earth. This is also practically excluded. The energy of the explosion is distributed in three dimensions, therefore, with an increase in the power of the ammunition by a thousand times, the radius of destructive action increases only ten times - a megaton warhead has a radius of destruction only ten times greater than a tactical, kiloton warhead.

66 million years ago, an asteroid impact led to the extinction of most land animals and plants. The impact power was about 100 million megatons - this is 10 thousand times more than the total power of all thermonuclear arsenals of the Earth. 790 thousand years ago, an asteroid collided with the planet, the impact was a million megatons, but no traces of even moderate extinction (including our genus Homo) occurred after that. Both life in general and people are much stronger than they seem.

The truth about thermonuclear weapons is not as popular as the myths. Today it is as follows: thermonuclear arsenals of compact warheads of medium power provide a fragile strategic balance, because of which no one can freely iron other countries of the world with atomic weapons. Fear of a thermonuclear response is more than enough of a deterrent.

Everyone has already discussed one of the most unpleasant news of December - North Korea's successful testing of a hydrogen bomb. Kim Jong-un did not fail to hint (directly state) that he was ready at any moment to transform weapons from defensive to offensive, which caused an unprecedented stir in the press around the world. However, there were also optimists who declared that the tests were falsified: they say that the shadow of the Juche is falling in the wrong direction, and somehow the radioactive fallout is not visible. But why is the presence of a hydrogen bomb in the aggressor country such a significant factor for free countries, since even nuclear warheads, which North Korea has in abundance, have never scared anyone so much?

The hydrogen bomb, also known as the Hydrogen Bomb or HB, is a weapon of incredible destructive power, whose power is measured in megatons of TNT. The principle of operation of HB is based on the energy that is generated during thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei - exactly the same process occurs in the Sun.

How is a hydrogen bomb different from an atomic bomb?

Nuclear fusion, the process that occurs during the detonation of a hydrogen bomb, is the most powerful type of energy available to humanity. We have not yet learned how to use it for peaceful purposes, but we have adapted it for military purposes. This thermonuclear reaction, similar to what can be seen in stars, releases an incredible flow of energy. In atomic energy, energy is obtained from the fission of the atomic nucleus, so the explosion of an atomic bomb is much weaker.

First test

And the Soviet Union was once again ahead of many participants in the Cold War race. The first hydrogen bomb, manufactured under the leadership of the brilliant Sakharov, was tested at the secret Semipalatinsk test site - and, to put it mildly, they impressed not only scientists, but also Western spies.

Shock wave

The direct destructive effect of a hydrogen bomb is a powerful, highly intense shock wave. Its power depends on the size of the bomb itself and the height at which the charge detonated.

Thermal effect

A hydrogen bomb of only 20 megatons (the size of the largest bomb tested so far is 58 megatons) creates a huge amount of thermal energy: concrete melted within a radius of five kilometers from the test site of the projectile. Within a nine-kilometer radius, all living things will be destroyed; neither equipment nor buildings will survive. The diameter of the crater formed by the explosion will exceed two kilometers, and its depth will fluctuate about fifty meters.

Fire ball

The most spectacular thing after the explosion will seem to observers to be a huge fireball: flaming storms initiated by the detonation of a hydrogen bomb will support themselves, drawing more and more flammable material into the funnel.

Radiation contamination

But the most dangerous consequence of the explosion will, of course, be radiation contamination. The disintegration of heavy elements in a raging fiery whirlwind will fill the atmosphere with tiny particles of radioactive dust - it is so light that when it enters the atmosphere, it can circle the globe two or three times and only then fall out in the form of precipitation. Thus, one explosion of a 100 megaton bomb could have consequences for the entire planet.

Tsar bomb

58 megatons - that's how much the largest hydrogen bomb, exploded at the test site of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, weighed. The shock wave circled the globe three times, forcing the opponents of the USSR to once again become convinced of the enormous destructive power of this weapon. Veselchak Khrushchev joked at the plenum that they didn’t make another bomb only for fear of breaking the glass in the Kremlin.

How Soviet physicists made the hydrogen bomb, what pros and cons this terrible weapon carried, read in the “History of Science” section.

After World War II, it was still impossible to talk about the actual onset of peace - two major world powers entered an arms race. One of the facets of this conflict was the confrontation between the USSR and the USA in the creation of nuclear weapons. In 1945, the United States, the first to enter the race behind the scenes, dropped nuclear bombs on the notorious cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviet Union also carried out work on creating nuclear weapons, and in 1949 they tested the first atomic bomb, the working substance of which was plutonium. Even during its development, Soviet intelligence found out that the United States had switched to developing a more powerful bomb. This prompted the USSR to start producing thermonuclear weapons.

The intelligence officers were unable to find out what results the Americans achieved, and the attempts of Soviet nuclear scientists were not successful. Therefore, it was decided to create a bomb, the explosion of which would occur due to the synthesis of light nuclei, and not the fission of heavy ones, as in an atomic bomb. In the spring of 1950, work began on creating a bomb, which later received the name RDS-6s. Among its developers was the future Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, who proposed the idea of ​​​​designing a charge back in 1948, but later opposed nuclear tests.

Andrey Sakharov

Vladimir Fedorenko/Wikimedia Commons

Sakharov proposed covering a plutonium core with several layers of light and heavy elements, namely uranium and deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen. Subsequently, however, it was proposed to replace deuterium with lithium deuteride - this significantly simplified the design of the charge and its operation. An additional advantage was that lithium, after bombardment with neutrons, produces another isotope of hydrogen - tritium. When tritium reacts with deuterium, it releases much more energy. In addition, lithium also slows down neutrons better. This structure of the bomb gave it the nickname “Sloika”.

A certain challenge was that the thickness of each layer and the final number of layers were also very important for a successful test. According to calculations, from 15% to 20% of the energy released during the explosion came from thermonuclear reactions, and another 75-80% from the fission of uranium-235, uranium-238 and plutonium-239 nuclei. It was also assumed that the charge power would be from 200 to 400 kilotons; the practical result was at the upper limit of the forecasts.

On Day X, August 12, 1953, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested in action. The Semipalatinsk test site where the explosion occurred was located in the East Kazakhstan region. The test of the RDS-6s was preceded by an attempt in 1949 (at that time a ground explosion of a bomb with a yield of 22.4 kilotons was carried out at the test site). Despite the isolated location of the test site, the population of the region experienced first-hand the beauty of nuclear testing. People who lived relatively close to the test site for decades, until the closure of the test site in 1991, were exposed to radiation, and areas many kilometers from the test site were contaminated with nuclear decay products.

The first Soviet hydrogen bomb RDS-6s

Wikimedia Commons

A week before the RDS-6s test, according to eyewitnesses, the military gave money and food to the families living near the test site, but there was no evacuation or information about the upcoming events. The radioactive soil was removed from the test site itself, and nearby structures and observation posts were restored. It was decided to detonate the hydrogen bomb on the surface of the earth, despite the fact that the configuration made it possible to drop it from an airplane.

Previous tests of atomic charges were strikingly different from what nuclear scientists recorded after the Sakharov puff test. The energy output of the bomb, which critics call not a thermonuclear bomb but a thermonuclear-enhanced atomic bomb, was 20 times greater than that of previous charges. This was noticeable to the naked eye in sunglasses: only dust remained from the surviving and restored buildings after the hydrogen bomb test.

60 years ago, on March 1, 1954, the United States detonated a hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. The power of this explosion was equivalent to the explosion of a thousand bombs that were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the most powerful test ever carried out in the United States. The estimated yield of the bomb was 15 megatons. Subsequently, in the United States, increasing the explosive power of such bombs was considered inappropriate.

As a result of the test, about 100 million tons of contaminated soil were released into the atmosphere. People were also injured. The US military did not postpone the test, knowing that the wind was blowing towards the inhabited islands and that fishermen could be harmed. The islanders and fishermen were not even warned about the tests and possible danger.

Thus, the Japanese fishing vessel “Happy Dragon” (“Fukuryu Maru”), which was located 140 km from the epicenter of the explosion, was exposed to radiation, 23 people were injured (later 12 of them died). According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, more than 800 Japanese fishing vessels were exposed to varying degrees of contamination as a result of the Castle Bravo test. There were about 20 thousand people on them. Residents of Rongelap and Ailinginae atolls received serious radiation doses. Some American soldiers were also injured.

The world community expressed its concern about a powerful shock war and radioactive fallout. Several prominent scientists, including Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, protested. In 1957, the first conference of a scientific movement was held in the Canadian town of Pugwash, the goal of which was to ban nuclear tests, reduce the risk of armed conflicts and jointly search for solutions to global problems (Pugwash Movement).

From the history of the creation of the hydrogen bomb in the USA

The idea of ​​a bomb with thermonuclear fusion initiated by an atomic charge was proposed back in 1941. In May 1941, physicist Tokutaro Hagiwara from the University of Kyoto in Japan suggested the possibility of initiating a thermonuclear reaction between hydrogen nuclei using an explosive chain reaction of fission of uranium-235 nuclei. A similar idea was expressed in September 1941 at Columbia University by the outstanding Italian physicist Enrico Fermi. He outlined it to his colleague, American physicist Edward Teller. Then Fermi and Teller suggested the possibility of initiating thermonuclear reactions in a deuterium environment by a nuclear explosion. Teller was inspired by this idea and during the implementation of the Manhattan Project, he devoted most of his time to working on creating a thermonuclear bomb.

It must be said that he was a real “militarist” scientist who advocated ensuring the US advantage in the field of nuclear weapons. The scientist was against the ban on nuclear tests in three environments and proposed carrying out new work to create cheaper and more efficient types of nuclear power. He advocated the deployment of weapons in space.

A group of brilliant scientists from the USA and Europe, who worked at the Los Alamos laboratory, during the work on creating nuclear weapons, also touched upon the problems of the deuterium superbomb. By the end of 1945, a relatively holistic concept of the “classic super” had been created. It was believed that the stream of neutrons coming out of the primary atomic bomb based on uranium-235 could cause detonation in a cylinder of liquid deuterium (through an intermediate chamber with a DT mixture). Emil Konopinsky proposed adding tritium to deuterium to reduce the ignition temperature. In 1946, Klaus Fuchs, with the participation of John Von Neumann, proposed the use of a new initiation system. It included an additional secondary assembly of a liquid DT mixture, which was ignited as a result of radiation from the primary atomic bomb.

Teller's collaborator, Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, made proposals that made it possible to move the development of a thermonuclear bomb into practice. Thus, to initiate thermonuclear fusion, he proposed compressing thermonuclear fuel before heating it, using the primary fission reaction for this and placing the thermonuclear charge separately from the primary nuclear component. Based on these calculations, Teller suggested that the x-ray and gamma radiation caused by the primary explosion would be able to transfer enough energy to the secondary component to initiate a thermonuclear reaction.

In January 1950, American President Harry Truman announced that the United States would work on all types of atomic weapons, including the hydrogen bomb (“superbomb”). It was decided to conduct the first field tests with thermonuclear reactions in 1951. Thus, they planned to test the “reinforced” atomic bomb “Point”, as well as the “classic super” model with a binary initiating compartment. This test was called "George" (the device itself was called "Cylinder"). In preparation for the George test, the classical principle of constructing a thermonuclear device was used, where the energy of the primary atomic bomb is retained and used to compress and initiate a second component with thermonuclear fuel.

On May 9, 1951, the George test was carried out. The first small thermonuclear flame broke out on Earth. In 1952, construction began on a lithium-6 plant. In 1953, production began.

In September 1951, Los Alamos decided to develop the Mike thermonuclear device. On November 1, 1952, a thermonuclear explosive device was tested at Enewetak Atoll. The power of the explosion was estimated at 10-12 megatons of TNT equivalent. Liquid deuterium was used as fuel for thermonuclear fusion. The idea of ​​a two-stage device with a Teller-Ulam configuration paid off. The device consisted of a conventional nuclear charge and a cryogenic container with a mixture of liquid deuterium and tritium. The “spark plug” for the thermonuclear reaction was a plutonium rod, which was located in the center of the cryogenic tank. The test was successful.

However, there was a problem - the superbomb was designed in a non-transportable version. The total weight of the structure was more than 70 tons. It could not be used during the war. The main task was the creation of transportable thermonuclear weapons. To do this, it was necessary to accumulate a sufficient amount of lithium-6. A sufficient amount had been accumulated by the spring of 1954.

On March 1, 1954, the Americans conducted a new thermonuclear test, Castle Bravo, at Bikini Atoll. Lithium deuteride was used as thermonuclear fuel. It was a two-stage charge: an initiating atomic charge and thermonuclear fuel. The test was considered successful. Although they were mistaken about the power of the explosion. He was much more powerful than expected.

Further tests made it possible to improve the thermonuclear charge. On May 21, 1956, the first bomb was dropped from an aircraft. The mass of the charge was reduced, which made the bomb smaller. By 1960, the United States was able to create megaton-class warheads, which were deployed on nuclear submarines.

The explosion occurred in 1961. Within a radius of several hundred kilometers from the test site, a hasty evacuation of people took place, as scientists calculated that all houses without exception would be destroyed. But no one expected such an effect. The blast wave circled the planet three times. The landfill remained a “blank slate”; all the hills on it disappeared. Buildings turned to sand in a second. A terrible explosion was heard within a radius of 800 kilometers.

If you think that the atomic warhead is the most terrible weapon of mankind, then you do not yet know about the hydrogen bomb. We decided to correct this oversight and talk about what it is. We have already talked about and.

A little about the terminology and principles of work in pictures

Understanding what a nuclear warhead looks like and why, it is necessary to consider the principle of its operation, based on the fission reaction. First, an atomic bomb detonates. The shell contains isotopes of uranium and plutonium. They disintegrate into particles, capturing neutrons. Next, one atom is destroyed and the fission of the rest is initiated. This is done using a chain process. At the end, the nuclear reaction itself begins. The bomb's parts become one whole. The charge begins to exceed critical mass. With the help of such a structure, energy is released and an explosion occurs.

By the way, a nuclear bomb is also called an atomic bomb. And hydrogen is called thermonuclear. Therefore, the question of how an atomic bomb differs from a nuclear bomb is inherently incorrect. It is the same. The difference between a nuclear bomb and a thermonuclear bomb is not only in the name.

The thermonuclear reaction is based not on the fission reaction, but on the compression of heavy nuclei. A nuclear warhead is the detonator or fuse for a hydrogen bomb. In other words, imagine a huge barrel of water. An atomic rocket is immersed in it. Water is a heavy liquid. Here the proton with sound is replaced in the hydrogen nucleus by two elements - deuterium and tritium:

• Deuterium is one proton and a neutron. Their mass is twice that of hydrogen;
• Tritium consists of one proton and two neutrons. They are three times heavier than hydrogen.

Thermonuclear bomb tests

, the end of World War II, a race began between America and the USSR and the world community realized that a nuclear or hydrogen bomb was more powerful. The destructive power of atomic weapons began to attract each side. The United States was the first to make and test a nuclear bomb. But it soon became clear that it could not be large. Therefore, it was decided to try to make a thermonuclear warhead. Here again America succeeded. The Soviets decided not to lose the race and tested a compact but powerful missile that could be transported even on a regular Tu-16 aircraft. Then everyone understood the difference between a nuclear bomb and a hydrogen one.

For example, the first American thermonuclear warhead was as tall as a three-story house. It could not be delivered by small transport. But then, according to developments by the USSR, the dimensions were reduced. If we analyze, we can conclude that these terrible destructions were not that great. In TNT equivalent, the impact force was only a few tens of kilotons. Therefore, buildings were destroyed in only two cities, and the sound of a nuclear bomb was heard in the rest of the country. If it were a hydrogen rocket, all of Japan would be completely destroyed with just one warhead.

A nuclear bomb with too much charge may explode inadvertently. A chain reaction will begin and an explosion will occur. Considering the differences between nuclear atomic and hydrogen bombs, it is worth noting this point. After all, a thermonuclear warhead can be made of any power without fear of spontaneous detonation.

This interested Khrushchev, who ordered the creation of the most powerful hydrogen warhead in the world and thus get closer to winning the race. It seemed to him that 100 megatons was optimal. Soviet scientists pushed themselves hard and managed to invest 50 megatons. Tests began on the island of Novaya Zemlya, where there was a military training ground. To this day, the Tsar Bomba is called the largest bomb exploded on the planet.

The explosion occurred in 1961. Within a radius of several hundred kilometers from the test site, a hasty evacuation of people took place, as scientists calculated that all houses without exception would be destroyed. But no one expected such an effect. The blast wave circled the planet three times. The landfill remained a “blank slate”; all the hills on it disappeared. Buildings turned to sand in a second. A terrible explosion was heard within a radius of 800 kilometers. The fireball from the use of such a warhead as the universal destroyer runic nuclear bomb in Japan was visible only in cities. But from a hydrogen rocket it rose 5 kilometers in diameter. The mushroom of dust, radiation and soot grew 67 kilometers. According to scientists, its cap was a hundred kilometers in diameter. Just imagine what would have happened if the explosion had occurred within the city limits.

Modern dangers of using the hydrogen bomb

We have already examined the difference between an atomic bomb and a thermonuclear one. Now imagine what the consequences of the explosion would have been if the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been a hydrogen bomb with a thematic equivalent. There would be no trace left of Japan.

Based on the test results, scientists concluded the consequences of a thermonuclear bomb. Some people think that a hydrogen warhead is cleaner, meaning it is not actually radioactive. This is due to the fact that people hear the name “water” and underestimate its deplorable impact on the environment.

As we have already figured out, a hydrogen warhead is based on a huge amount of radioactive substances. It is possible to make a rocket without a uranium charge, but so far this has not been used in practice. The process itself will be very complex and costly. Therefore, the fusion reaction is diluted with uranium and a huge explosion power is obtained. The radioactive fallout that inexorably falls on the drop target is increased by 1000%. They will harm the health of even those who are tens of thousands of kilometers from the epicenter. When detonated, a huge fireball is created. Everything that comes within its radius of action is destroyed. The scorched earth may be uninhabitable for decades. Absolutely nothing will grow over a vast area. And knowing the strength of the charge, using a certain formula, you can calculate the theoretically contaminated area.

Also worth mentioning about such an effect as nuclear winter. This concept is even more terrible than destroyed cities and hundreds of thousands of human lives. Not only the dump site will be destroyed, but virtually the entire world. At first, only one territory will lose its habitable status. But a radioactive substance will be released into the atmosphere, which will reduce the brightness of the sun. This will all mix with dust, smoke, soot and create a veil. It will spread throughout the entire planet. The crops in the fields will be destroyed for several decades to come. This effect will provoke famine on Earth. The population will immediately decrease several times. And nuclear winter looks more than real. Indeed, in the history of mankind, and more specifically, in 1816, a similar case was known after a powerful volcanic eruption. There was a year without summer on the planet at that time.

Skeptics who do not believe in such a coincidence of circumstances can be convinced by the calculations of scientists:

1. When the Earth cools by a degree, no one will notice it. But this will affect the amount of precipitation.
2. In autumn there will be a cooling of 4 degrees. Due to the lack of rain, crop failures are possible. Hurricanes will begin even in places where they have never existed.
3. When temperatures drop a few more degrees, the planet will experience its first year without summer.
4. This will be followed by the Little Ice Age. The temperature drops by 40 degrees. Even in a short time it will be destructive for the planet. On Earth there will be crop failures and the extinction of people living in the northern zones.
5. Afterwards the ice age will come. Reflection of the sun's rays will occur without reaching the surface of the earth. Due to this, the air temperature will reach a critical level. Crops and trees will stop growing on the planet, and water will freeze. This will lead to the extinction of most of the population.
6. Those who survive will not survive the final period - an irreversible cold snap. This option is completely sad. It will be the real end of humanity. The earth will turn into a new planet, unsuitable for human habitation.

Now about another danger. As soon as Russia and the United States emerged from the Cold War stage, a new threat appeared. If you have heard about who Kim Jong Il is, then you understand that he will not stop there. This missile lover, tyrant and ruler of North Korea all rolled into one could easily provoke a nuclear conflict. He talks about the hydrogen bomb constantly and notes that his part of the country already has warheads. Fortunately, no one has seen them live yet. Russia, America, as well as its closest neighbors - South Korea and Japan, are very concerned even about such hypothetical statements. Therefore, we hope that North Korea’s developments and technologies will not be at a sufficient level for a long time to destroy the entire world.

For reference. At the bottom of the world's oceans lie dozens of bombs that were lost during transportation. And in Chernobyl, which is not so far from us, huge reserves of uranium are still stored.

It is worth considering whether such consequences can be allowed for the sake of testing a hydrogen bomb. And if a global conflict occurs between the countries possessing these weapons, there will be no states, no people, or anything at all left on the planet, the Earth will turn into a blank slate. And if we consider how a nuclear bomb differs from a thermonuclear bomb, the main point is the amount of destruction, as well as the subsequent effect.

Now a small conclusion. We figured out that a nuclear bomb and an atomic bomb are one and the same. It is also the basis for a thermonuclear warhead. But using neither one nor the other is not recommended, even for testing. The sound of the explosion and what the aftermath looks like is not the worst thing. This threatens a nuclear winter, the death of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants at once and numerous consequences for humanity. Although there are differences between such charges as an atomic bomb and a nuclear bomb, the effect of both is destructive for all living things.