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A supernova-created natural nuclear bomb in asteroid form. Acting just like a human or alien nuke, but completely arising from natural processes. Or did I miss
by sounds 12y ago
A supernova-created natural nuclear bomb in asteroid form. Acting just like a human or alien nuke, but completely arising from natural processes.
Or did I miss something? :)
- ChuckMcM 12y agoExactly, the original 'thin man' HEU A-bomb[1] was really pretty simple, compress two subcritical chunks of fissile material into a supercritical chunk and hold it there as long as possible. So imagine you've got a bunch of sub critical chunks all in a line, they hit an atmosphere which gets them to pile up like a line of tailgating cars on the freeway. The numbers should be quite computable to figure out a bounds box on the possible yield. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_Man_%28nuclear_bomb%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_Man_%28nuclear_bomb%29
- api 12y agoYup, but you left out the part where it is traveling at relativistic velocities and thus also causes the gases in the atmosphere to go thermonuclear on impact from kinetic energy alone. So a "hypervelocity critical mass" might be a thing.