How Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs Work

The most lethal weapon on the world is nuclear weapons. Here's how they work.

According to Statista, there are around 13,080 nuclear weapons in the globe right now, with roughly 90% of them belonging to the United States and Russia.

The process of fission is used in a hydrogen bomb to trigger fusion. What do nuclear warheads entail?

Nuclear warheads are weapons of mass destruction that can destroy cities in seconds and kill millions of people.Due to radioactive pollution, they also have widespread and long-term repercussions on the ecosystem and future generations.Only two nuclear weapons, called 'Little Boy' and 'Fatman,' have ever been used, both by the US in 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War .Experts believe that 70,000 to 135,000 people died at Hiroshima, while 60,000 to 80,000 people died in Nagasaki.

Despite the obvious dangers of nuclear weapons, some countries, such as North Korea, continue to conduct nuclear tests on a regular basis.Nuclear weapons can be deployed on land, sea, and air, posing a threat of nuclear war as well as extensive radioactive contamination.Atomic and hydrogen bombs are the two types of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Weapons

J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist, developed the atomic weapon (known as 'Little Boy') in 1942 as part of the Manhattan Project.The atomic bomb is a first-generation nuclear weapon that functions by splitting an atom's nucleus into two or more smaller nuclei through a process known as fission.

Nuclear fission generates a massive quantity of energy and particles, which react with other atoms as it explodes, resulting in a chain reaction that grows exponentially.Because enriched uranium and plutonium atoms are unstable and radioactive, they constitute the most powerful fuel for an atomic bomb.

Bombs made of hydrogen

The hydrogen bomb (also known as the H-bomb or thermonuclear bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon with 1,000 times the destructive potential of first-generation atomic weapons.In 1952, Edward Teller, Stanislaw M. Ulam, and other American scientists invented the weapon, which has never been deployed in a battle.Hydrogen bombs are smaller than atomic bombs, have a lower mass, and operate primarily by a process known as fusion, which also includes fission.When two or more atomic nuclei join to generate one or more distinct atomic nuclei and subatomic particles, this is known as nuclear fusion (neutrons or protons).Because the overall mass of the resulting single nucleus is smaller than the combined mass of the two initial nuclei, there is excess mass that is converted to energy.

In essence, an H-bomb uses the energy created from an initial fission process (usually involving depleted uranium) to heat and compress hydrogen, causing it to fuse.The fusion process can then cause more fission processes, increasing the H-destructive bomb's power.The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia (as the Soviet Union), and China are among the countries that currently possess hydrogen bombs.

Is it possible to intercept a nuclear weapon?

Anti-ballistic missiles are currently available to counter ballistic missiles, which are frequently employed to carry nuclear warheads (ABMs).

The Soviet Union built the ABM system for the first time in 1962 to safeguard Moscow.These ABMs detect and track incoming ballistic missiles before shooting an interceptor to kill them before they reach their intended target.

This is often accomplished with a booster rocket that can either collide with the oncoming missile and destroy it on impact, or employ a blast fragmentation warhead to detonate the payload in the incoming missile without generating a nuclear explosion.

It's vital to remember that intercepting an oncoming intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is extremely difficult, and even if the ABM is successful in destroying it, the plutonium or uranium core could fall to the earth, posing a radiation threat.

An atomic bomb is being tested over the ocean in this photograph.