Why do nukes make a mushrooms cloud ?
In: Chemistry
Any explosion large enough will make one. It’s essentially a consequence of buoyancy.
The superheated air and smoke from the explosion will rise and form the “cap” of the mushroom. There’s also air flow and heat transfer physics that govern the shape of the cloud, bc the center is hotter than the outer parts, but that’s a little beyond eli5.
Anyway, as the cap rises, air will rush in to fill the void behind it. This pushes all the smoke and dust kicked up from the ground towards the center, which rises because it’s also hot, forming a relatively narrow column of smoke. This forms the stem of the mushroom. There’s also some aerosols that cool off and are no longer lighter than air precipitating out of the cap that makes up the stem as well.
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