The H-bomb: What is it? Who has it? Why it matters
Story highlights
North Korea claims to have tested a hydrogen bombHydrogen bombs can be thousands of times more powerful than the only atomic bombs ever used
(CNN)North Korea announced Wednesday that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb.
If true, it now possesses something much more powerful than the weapons it has tested in the past.
The nuclear age is 70 years old, and while relatively few nations possess the power, the potential consequences of North Korea upping its nuclear game from a basic atomic bomb to a hydrogen bomb has caught the world's attention.
Here's why.
Nuclear weapons: Who has what?
A quick lesson in fission versus fusion
If Pyongyang has mastered the technology, it has made a major step forward in its nuclear capabilities.
The plutonium-based atomic weapons it tested up until this point were powerful enough -- the United States dropped such weapons on Japan to end World War II -- but a hydrogen bomb made with uranium ups the ante many fold.
Atomic bombs use a process called fission. They split plutonium into smaller atoms, releasing massive amounts of energy
The A-bombs dropped by American forces on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killed more than 200,000 people
Hydrogen bombs use fusion. Instead of splitting bigger atoms, they combine smaller atoms like hydrogen to release a much bigger nuclear punch -- thousands of times more powerful than the only nuclear weapons that have been used in warfare.
"What thermonuclear weapons do is increase the potential yield by enormous amounts. The amounts that can be released by thermonuclear weapons are phenomenal," said Martin Navias, senior fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London.
The most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated was the Tzar Bomba, a hydrogen bomb tested by the Soviet Union in 1961, he said. It yielded a blast of 50,000 kilotons, or 50 megatons, dwarfing the force of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
With the development of an H-bomb, reclusive North Korea would be that much more of a threat.
A quick lesson in how it works
A hydrogen bomb is a complex bit of machinery. It's basically two bombs in one.
While it gets its bang from fusion, it takes a lot of heat to get the process started -- to get the atoms to smash together and start a nuclear chain reaction. That's why they're called thermonuclear weapons.
What better way to do that with than another much smaller nuclear weapon. An atomic bomb works as the trigger to set off the hydrogen bomb. The two explosions are almost simultaneous.
The nuclear arsenals of the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China are made up of these types of weapons.
India and Pakistan are believed to have atomic bombs.
A quick lesson in history
Atomic bombs have been only used twice in warfare -- both times by the United States and both times on Japan.
The devastation led to Japan's unconditional surrender and brought an end to the war.
Hydrogen bombs have never been used, although there have been times when the world seemed to be on the brink. The Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s is just one example.
Because of their devastating destructive potential, the nuclear powers are wary of using them. Nuclear treaties have rolled back nuclear warhead numbers in recent decades.
A quick look at the nuclear powers
Since dawn of the nuclear age, at least eight nations have conducted more than 2,000 nuclear test explosions.
The United States was the first one, detonating an atomic bomb in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. In the ensuing years, the U.S. has been joined by the USSR/Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Israel is also believed to have nuclear weapons.
There are believed to be 10,000 to 15,000 nuclear warheads in the arsenals of the nuclear powers.
North Korea is the only nation to have conducted any nuclear tests since 1999, with tests in 2006, 2009, 2013 and this year. India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998.
How do North Korea's nuclear capabilities stack up?
It has not been confirmed that North Korea has successfully tested a miniaturized H-bomb.
Navias, for one, says he does not believe North Korea's claim.
"Their rhetoric tends to run ahead of their actual capabilities," he told CNN.
Wednesday's test yielded a blast of a similar magnitude to a previous North Korean test in 2013, he said.
"One would have expected the yield (from an H-bomb) to have been far greater."
Nevertheless, North Korea's advances in nuclear weapons technology were real and concerning, he said.
While Pyongyang does not have intercontinental ballistic missile technology that would enable it to strike the West Coast of the United States, it has missiles capable of striking South Korea, Japan and U.S. military bases in the region, he said.
North Korea still needs to make "very challenging" advancements in miniaturizing nuclear warheads to be able to fit them onto missiles, and to improve its missile guidance systems, he said. But it is undoubtedly making efforts to advance in these areas.
"There are people out there that know this stuff," he said.
It also claims to have recently tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile, he said -- a technology that, if mastered, "would be a completely different level of threat."
"I don't think they've reached anywhere with those things, but they're moving steadily in that direction and the outside world has little leverage," he said.
"If left unattended, it's not unreasonable to assume that in the long run, all these things will realize themselves."
Source: CNN.com
My question is when will Nigeria test theirs?
Post a Comment