Hello Steemit! On July 9, 2017, is the 55th anniversary of the nuclear test "StarFish Prime", which shook the world in a difficult time. I want to talk to you in this post, about what happened that day and why could have destroyed the world. I hope you enjoy this subject.
Nuclear tests in the Cold War
The world was in the midst of a nuclear tension in the 1960, caused by the Cold War between superpowers as the United States and the Soviet Union. Both nations carried out and arms race, accumulating big arsenals of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. At that time thousands of nuclear tests were executed, trying to test this type of weaponry in all kinds of strategies and war scenarios.
These countries realized that able to destroy intercontinental missiles and use the side effects of the explosions of these nuclear bombs at high altitude (from 100 km) in order to block the communications of the enemy. The main nuclear tests in space will take place between 1958 and 1959, keeping the world in a state of terror.
Starfish Prime is detonated
It is July 9, 1962, when the United States performs the most powerful nuclear test in the space that has been know, called Starfish Prime, in which a missile Thor transported a W49 thermonuclear bomb 400 kilometers above the island of Johnston in the Pacific Ocean and detonated a device with 1.4 megatons. Within the objectives that had this test was to determine if the areas of the terrestrial magnetosphere where the charged particles are concentrated (Van Allen radiation belt) could shift the effects of the explosion towards a terrestrial objective located in a certain distance of the test nuclear. One possibility that was contemplated was that the areas where was the charged particles could be affected by this explosion, which could resulted serious for the living beings of the planet, because the aforementioned Van Allen radiation belt protect us from many of the particles that circulate through space.
The explosion of Starfish Prime seen through a thick layer of clouds from Honolulu. Image of Public Domain, Wikipedia
Effects of nuclear explosion
An immediate effect of this explosion was an aurora seen thousands of miles, however the effects were beyond a light show. When the bomb exploded its electrons accelerated causing a brief but powerful electromagnetic pulse, much higher than expected causing the destruction of electronic devices in several islands of the Pacific Ocean, mainly in Hawaii, affecting electrical and telephone systems. However, months after the detonation, the most costly damage would occur with the destruction of some satellites such as Ariel, TRAAC, and Transit 4B, destroyed by the artificial radiation belt that crossed the orbits.
U.S. Air Force 1352nd Photographic Group, Lookout Mountain Station - Image courtesy of US Govt. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Image of Public Domain Wikipedia
A study by Wilmot Hess who is a NASA scientist indicates that the belt lasted about five years before being dissipated by the Earth's magnetic field. Scientists and engineers who participated in the Starfish Prime development were expecting something much smaller, not at the level that actually occurred, they could not predict that high-energy electrons could be trapped at the upper limit of the terrestrial thermosphere. Although months after the explosion the physical effects disappeared, side effects continue to affect in the present.
The end of nuclear tests in space. For now...
The explosion of Starfish Prime was a topic hidden from public opinion for over 50 years, perhaps for its unexpected consequences being a demonstration of the potential of a weapon of mass destruction. At present such a nuclear test would cause catastrophic economic and political damage. In 1963 the Cold War superpowers would realize the potential side effects that the planet could suffer in the future by continuing to executed tests such as Starfish Prime, so they would sign a treaty prohibiting nuclear testing. A positive side of this famous test was that it made it possible to know the power of the electromagnetic pulses and to understand that if the objective was to neutralize satellites in orbit, there were easier ways to do so. The question we ask ourselves 55 years later is: If it was worth the risk?
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Upvoted. well researched topic