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What is the difference between a nuclear and hydrogen bomb?

 What is the difference between a nuclear and hydrogen bomb?

North Korea says that its successful test of a hydrogen bomb on Sunday constituted great progress over its previous five tests because the sixth test successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb.


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Some experts doubt that Pyongyang has tested a powerful nuclear bomb. So what is the difference between a hydrogen bomb and an atomic bomb? Why do the United States and its allies matter? This is what the experts say.

How does a nuclear weapon work?

A nuclear weapon provokes an explosive reaction, through which the process of pressure is formed and then the destructive energy contained within the materials manufactured for the atomic bomb is released.

The first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on Japan in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, which led to the splitting of fissile uranium or plutonium atoms and allowed subatomic neutrinos to exit freely and fly, which leads to the destruction of more atoms and the creation of the Big Bang.

So how is the hydrogen bomb different?

A hydrogen bomb, also called a thermonuclear bomb, uses a second stage of the reaction to amplify the power of an atomic explosion. The phase is the fusion phase where the hydrogen atoms are mashed and crushed together, in the same process that fuels the sun. When these relatively light atoms coalesce, they unleash neutrons in a wave of devastating energy.

A hydrogen weapon primarily uses the explosion of primary nuclear fission to produce a massive, complete pulse that compresses, compresses and fuses small amounts of tritium and deuterium, types of hydrogen near the center and core of the bomb.

The swarms of neutrons intensify and reach a series of explosives from the uranium layer wrapped around them. It produces more of a very large explosion than the emission of uranium alone.

The United States tested a hydrogen bomb on the “Bikini Atoll” in the Marshall Islands in 1954 and it was a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Britain, France, Russia, and China also produced hydrogen bombs.

The weight of the hydrogen bomb, which Pyongyang conducted its sixth test, reached 108 kilotons, according to a team of Chinese scientists, but the Japanese Ministry of Defense stated that the weight of the bomb was approximately 120 kilotons. If this weight falls over Seoul, the capital of South Korea, it will cause destruction in a radius of 170 kilometers and will paralyze life in the southern neighbor.

Life could also stop in parts of the United States if a nuclear missile was launched that explodes at an altitude of 400 km, and the development of the hydrogen bomb is essential to the installation of a lighter warhead because it would allow a much greater explosive power compared to its size and weight.

Professor Soo-Kun-you from Seoul University says: “All of South Korea will be paralyzed, the foundation of the nation will be destroyed. few.

But experts who studied the impact of the earthquake, which the US Geological Survey estimated at 6.3, said it was strong enough evidence to suggest that the reclusive country either developed a hydrogen bomb or came very close to achieving that goal.

South Korean and Japanese officials said the explosion was 10 times more powerful than the fifth nuclear test a year ago.

 Two-stage bomb?

A hydrogen bomb typically uses a primary nuclear bomb to set off a much more powerful secondary detonation.

In such a weapon, the first stage is based on nuclear fission by splitting atoms, and the second stage is based on nuclear fusion to produce an explosive power much greater than the power of conventional atomic bombs, that is, pure fission bombs.

Hours before the latest test, North Korean media published pictures of leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting a peanut-shaped device and said it was a hydrogen bomb designed to be loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The rectangular shape of the device shows a marked difference from the images of ball bombs that North Korea released in March of last year and appears to indicate the appearance of a two-stage thermonuclear weapon.

"If we look at the shape of the bomb that North Korea demonstrated today, the front looks like a nuclear bomb that triggers the process of nuclear fission and the back is a second stage that generates nuclear fusion reactions," said Chang Yong-Kyun, a missile science expert at Korea Aeronautics University.

The North's official news agency quoted the North's Nuclear Weapons Institute as saying that Sunday's test proved the work of a hydrogen bomb.

North Korea also specifically mentioned for the first time the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse attack. Such an attack would involve detonating a bomb in the air rather than launching a long-range missile at a major American city.

Some US policymakers and experts have raised concerns that such an attack could create a massive surge of energy and deal a devastating blow to the US electricity grid and critical infrastructure.

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