![]() ![]() ![]() Main Entry: ↑cobalt * * * cobalt bomb, 1.ReferencesĬobalt bomb - noun A suggested bomb consisting of a hydrogen bomb encased in cobalt, with increased destructive qualities resulting from the cobalt 60 dust released Stratospheric scientist and Australian peace activist Brian Martin has published analyses demonstrating this crucial weakness in the idea that the planetary nuclear arsenal is several times as large as that required to destroy all life on Earth this analysis would have implications for the real versus the assumed lethality of the cobalt bomb to all life on Earth. However, the effects of nuclear weapons, including blast, physical damage and fallout, do not scale up linearly with weapon size or yield the magnitude of these effects increases more gradually than the energy released by the nuclear detonation. While the sheer size and cost of such a weapon makes it unlikely to be built, it is technically possible because there is no maximum size limit for a thermonuclear bomb. To provide a point of reference: to equally distribute 1 gram of cobalt per square kilometer of Earths surface one would need 510 tonnes, and fallout does not reach all areas in equal amounts. ![]() Many isotopes are more radioactive (gold-198, tantalum-182, zinc-65, sodium-24, and many more), but they would decay faster, possibly allowing some population to survive in shelters. While there exist isotopes with a longer half-life than 60Co, they are also insufficiently radioactive. Cobalt was chosen because of the fallout, that would have a half-life of 5.27 years and would be intensely radioactive at the same time. The concept of a cobalt bomb was originally described by physicist Leó Szilárd, who suggested that an arsenal of cobalt bombs would be capable of destroying all human life on Earth (though his conclusions are disputed). The excited 60Ni then transitions to a ground state 60Ni, releasing gamma radiation. 60Co decays into an excited 60Ni by beta decay. The cobalt tamper would be transmuted into the isotope 60Co upon initiation and bombardment by neutron radiation. The Operation Antler/Round 1 test by the British at the Tadje site in the Maralinga range in Australia on 14 September 1957 tested a bomb using cobalt as a radiochemical tracer, but was considered a failure. The weapon's tamper would be composed of ordinary cobalt metal, which the nuclear explosion would then transmute to the radioactive isotope cobalt-60 ( 60Co), which would produce deadly nuclear fallout.Īs far as is publicly known, no cobalt bombs were ever built. "About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.For cancer radiation treatments delivered from a device with a cobalt-60 isotope source, see Cobalt therapy.Ī cobalt bomb is a theoretical type of "salted bomb": a nuclear weapon intended to contaminate an area by radioactive material, with a relatively small blast. Many classics in the genre of science fiction take up the theme in this respect. Doomsday devices have been present in literature and art especially in the 20th century, when advances in science and technology made world destruction (or at least the eradication of all human life) a credible scenario. Most hypothetical contructions rely on the fact that hydrogen bombs can be made arbitrarily large assuming there are no concerns about delivering them to a target (see Teller–Ulam design) or that they can be "salted" with materials designed to create long-lasting and hazardous fallout (e.g. A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly the Earth, or destroy the planet itself (bringing doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth). Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. ![]()
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