How do hydrogen bombs work

Energy is released when those neutrons split off from the nucleus, and the newly released neutrons strike other uranium or plutonium nuclei, splitting them in the same way, releasing more energy and more neutrons. This chain reaction spreads almost instantaneously. The material used was uranium It is believed that the fission of slightly less than one kilogram of uranium released energy equivalent to approximately 15, tons of TNT.

Compared to the one used on Hiroshima, the Nagasaki bomb was rounder and fatter. The material used was plutonium The fission of slightly more than one kilogram of plutonium is thought to have released destructive energy equivalent to about 21, tons of TNT. Nuclear fusion is a reaction that releases atomic energy by the union of light nuclei at high temperatures to form heavier atoms. This indirectly results in a greatly increased energy yield, i.

Oddly, in most applications, the majority of its destructive energy comes from uranium fission, not hydrogen fusion alone. The fusion stage in these types of weapons is required in order to efficiently create the large quantities of fission that are characteristic of most thermonuclear weapons.

The essential features of a mature, thermonuclear weapon design, which officially remained secret for nearly three decades, are the following:. The most common bomb design that employs these features is called the Teller-Ulam configuration. Simply speaking, experts say a hydrogen bomb is the more advanced version of an atomic bomb. An atomic bomb uses either uranium or plutonium and relies on fission, a nuclear reaction in which a nucleus or an atom breaks apart into two pieces.

To make a hydrogen bomb, one would still need uranium or plutonium as well as two other isotopes of hydrogen, called deuterium and tritium. The hydrogen bomb relies on fusion, the process of taking two separate atoms and putting them together to form a third atom. In both cases, a significant amount of energy is released, which drives the explosion, experts say. However, more energy is released during the fusion process, which causes a bigger blast.

Morse said the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were each equivalent to just about 10, kilotons of TNT. Hydrogen bombs are also harder to produce but lighter in weight, meaning they could travel farther on top of a missile, according to experts.

Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum, told The Guardian that if the test was real, then North Korea likely tested a "boosted" fission device, not an actual fusion device.

Below is a second graphic showing a boosted atomic bomb and a hydrogen bomb. A special form of "heavy" hydrogen or deuterium green , is key to both weapons. It causes more fissionable atoms to split, and thus release more energy all at once.

In order to trigger fusion, however, you need a ton of energy — which is why a fission bomb has to detonate first. So H-bombs are really made of two bombs: a fission bomb and a fusion bomb:. Inside an H-bomb, a "boosted" fission bomb releases a blast of powerful X-ray radiation, which is focused precisely onto the fusion bomb.

This happens before the shockwave can blow apart an H-bomb, by the way, since X-rays travel at light-speed and blast shockwaves do not. That X-ray blast then sets off the fusion bomb, creating an explosion powerful enough to merge a bunch of atoms, convert some of that material into pure energy, and trigger a blast that's frighteningly more powerful than an atomic bomb's. Follow Tech Insider on Facebook and Twitter.

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