I’ve heard people say there is no fallout, but there typically is a fission bomb in the secondary stage. Where does its radiation go? Is it just blown away by the fusion bomb so it’s no longer as deadly? Isn’t it still there though? Is it just weaker?
In: Physics
The Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test was a massive fallout disaster that ended up killing some Japanese fishermen that were downwind from it. The scientists in charge of the test miscalculated the yield due to unknown fusion properties of lithium isotopes. So yes, if the fireball hits the ground, whether through miscalculation or an intentional ground burst, it’s going to suck up whatever is on the ground and mix it with all the nasty radioactive fission products from the bomb.
The Tsar Bomba test was relatively “clean” because the fireball didn’t hit the ground. The nasty fission products are lofted into the upper atmosphere, distributed over the globe and have a lot more time to decay before they fall back to the ground. Partially because the bomb was detonated so high in the first place, Partially because its massive yield lofted the debris cloud so high and Partially because the fission products didn’t have heavier bits of vaporized rock/soil/people/etc to drag them back down before they decayed or disbursed.
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