Nuclear explosions in space?

No oxygen needed of course. It would, however, be a very quiet explosion, if explosion is the right word.

I wonder, though: in an environment without air, would the explosion in question even be very large? What I mean is, would it harm less, because the void would absorb a large part of the energy (larger than air would?)

My son was just talking to me about this yesterday!!! He was saying that some of his friends were talking about a meteor hitting the planet in so many years according to scientists and blah, blah, blah.

We talked about size, make up, orbit, gravity, etc.

He asked if every country that had them were to aim their nuclear weapons at it and fire so as to hit at the same (approx) time, would it break it up or at least knock it off course.

That was when I questioned whether or not nuclear blasts are affective in space and had to wonder if it would blow up the meteor or not.

Look forward to getting a detailed scientific answer that I can share with my son.

Very interesting question, James. Thanks for asking.

A nuclear explosion in space would be significantly "larger" than within an atmosphere, given nuclear devices of the same yield. As would a conventional explosion - conventional explosives are independent of atmospheric oxygen (an oxidizin' agent is part-and-parcel of an explosive composition; thats why the stuff explodes). No atmospheric or gravitational effects would inhibit expansion of the burst. The explosion of a star - a Nova - precisely is a nuclear explosion of massive scale, accompanied by gas clouds and shockwaves which extend for light-years and shape galactic features.

Re: Nuclear explosions in space?


It's not the breakdown of molecules but the fusing of hydrogen atoms which leads to the tremendous release of energy. If the explosion were in open space it would be mostly a lot of light and other radiation. If was near something like in Armageddon than there would be a large explosion because the rock of the asteroid would be vaporized.

I say, let's test the proposition . . . let's nuke the moon . . .

I'm working on that as we speak

Coo-el

Nuking the moon...hahaha, might be a pretty cool night show if they work it just right.

Re: Nuclear explosions in space?


The answer seems fairly obvious to me. Our own sun and all of the stars are burning as a result of continuing nuclear reactions. They are all out in space in an oxygenless environment no???

The sun is a mass
Of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is turned into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

-- They Might Be Giants

And now we know why I'm not a scientist! Thanks for the answers. Will have to let my son read this thread and maybe we'll do some more investigating.

But, meanwhile, could you guys please leave the moon alone? I kinda like it where it is.

Certainly a nuclear explosion would occur in vacuum, since it originates from a nuclear chain reaction, rather than combustion with oxygen in the atmosphere. Your question about knocking the meteor off course is scientifically interesting. Since the missiles would probably contain much less mass than the meteor, their net momentum would probably be much less than that of the meteor, even if they were travelling at a high speed. Therefore, although explosions they produced could break the meteor into pieces, the center of mass of the pieces would continue on virtually the same course. Momentum originating in the explosion would have a vector sum of zero, by the law of conservation of momentum. Thus, they might cause the meteor to break up and dissipate, and this might greatly reduce the damage to the Earth, but at least in a theoretical sense, they could not "knock it off course." That is, the center of mass of the pieces would continue on the same course, and the power of the explosions would be irrelevant to that, although that might be of only theoretical interest if the pieces were dissipated enough.

Nothing about oxygen.
Nuclear reaction is certainly not a type of chemical reaction. If it was, our sun would never provide no more than 1 trillionth percent (Well I am not sure with the real percentage) of energy it sents out into space actually.

The vacuum of space would not prevent a conventional explosion either - the components of an explosive substance include sufficient oxidizin' agent to enable detonation, whether in the atmosphere, under water, hermetically buried withinin rock, or in the vacuum of space.

I agree neither fission nor fusion bombs need oxygen beyond that contained in oxygen containing chemicals that are used in the triggering mechanism of some designs. Air or other gas however helps couple the blast energy to the target, so the meteor would be less likely to shatter because of a blast at or near the surface of the meteor. In this case some of surface of the meteor would be vaporized, and the vapor would act like a jet engine propelling the asteroid away from the blast. A kilometer size asteroid has a mass of more than a billion tons, so a 100 megaton H bomb might change the meteor direction by only one second of arc, which is hardly enough deflection to be useful. Neil

I am not sure about this. If you look at the meteor and missiles a second before such an explosion, that is precisely the same momentum that will have to be present after the explosion, if the vector sum of all of the pieces is totalled. For the meteor to go off in one direction, some reaction mass will have to go off in the other. I do see that you are postulating that a jet of matter from the explosion could serve this purpose, but I'm not sure it's enough matter. If the mass of that jet were a hundredth of a percent of the total mass of the meteor, and the speed of the material in the jet were 10,000 mph (I have no idea what speeds are involved), then the explosion would change the speed of the remaining matter by 1 mph, which isn't much. To impart a higher speed change to the meteor, the postulated jet would have to contain a higher fraction of the matter of the meteor, or else be moving faster than 10,000 mph.

All hypothecation, of course, but without goin' into hypothecation re the direct kinetic effect of a nuke burst in near proximity to a space-borne object, there would be considerable thermal and EMF effect - both of which might be expected to have some influence on the target mass' momentum, trajectory, and structural integrity.

A directly coupled blast - the nuke in physical contact with, or embedded beneath, the surface of the target object - should be expected to propell significant mass away from the main body with sufficient energy - in the form of velocity - as to preclude re-accretion of a substantial portion of the ejected mass. If the meteor were to be intercepted sufficiently distant from Earth, even a comparatively small change in vector would have appreciable displacement effect by the time the remainin' mass arrived in Earth's vicinity.

On the other hand, such an approach might simply result in lotsa relatively smaller fragments havin' in the aggregate somewhere near the original, intact mass showerin' down on the planet over a far broader area and extended time period - which prolly wouldn't be any better at all for the flora and fauna of the planet.

Flora and me, we're gettin' outta town now, while the gettin's good . . .