![]() A cobalt bomb's fallout on the other hand would render affected areas effectively stuck in this interim state for decades: habitable, but not safe for constant habitation. The large-yield two-stage (a fission trigger/primary with a fusion–fission secondary) thermonuclear weapon is thus automatically a weapon of radiological warfare, but its fallout decays much more rapidly than that of a cobalt bomb. After one to six months, the fission products from even a large-yield thermonuclear weapon decay to levels tolerable by humans. other nuclear weapons įission products are more deadly than neutron-activated cobalt in the first few weeks following detonation. 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.įallout from cobalt bombs vs. The 5.27 year half life of the 60Co is long enough to allow it to settle out before significant decay has occurred, and to render it impractical to wait in shelters for it to decay, yet short enough that intense radiation is produced. ![]() Nickel-60 is a stable isotope and undergoes no further decays after the transmutation is complete. The deposited cobalt-60 would have a half-life of 5.27 years, decaying into 60Ni and emitting two gamma rays with energies of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV, hence the overall nuclear equation of the reaction is: The cobalt would then condense and fall back to Earth with the dust and debris from the explosion, contaminating the ground. When the bomb explodes, the neutrons produced by the fusion reaction in the secondary stage of the thermonuclear bomb's explosion would transmute the cobalt to the radioactive cobalt-60, which would be vaporized by the explosion. Amongst other comments on it, Edward Moore Geist wrote a paper in which he says that "Russian decision makers would have little confidence that these areas would be in the intended locations" and Russian military experts are cited as saying that "robotic torpedoes could have other purposes, such as delivering deep-sea equipment or installing surveillance devices." Mechanism Decay of cobalt-60 showing the release of powerful gamma rays.Ī cobalt bomb could be made by placing a quantity of ordinary cobalt metal ( 59Co) around a thermonuclear bomb. If Status-6 does exist, it is not publicly known whether the leaked 2015 design is accurate, nor whether the 2015 claim that the torpedo might be a cobalt bomb is genuine. In 2018 the Pentagon's annual Nuclear Posture Review stated Russia is developing a system called the "Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System". It is not known whether the Status-6 is a real project, or whether it is Russian disinformation. Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta speculated that the warhead would be a cobalt bomb. The document stated the torpedo would create "wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time." Its payload would be "many tens of megatons in yield". The design was titled " Oceanic Multipurpose System Status-6", later given the official name Poseidon. In 2015, a page from an apparent Russian nuclear torpedo design was leaked. Photosynthesizing vegetation exists all around the lake that was formed. The high percentage contribution is largely because the devices primarily used fusion rather than fission reactions, so the quantity of gamma-emitting caesium-137 fallout was comparatively low. In Russia, the triple " taiga" nuclear salvo test, as part of the preliminary March 1971 Pechora–Kama Canal project, produced relatively high amounts of cobalt-60 ( 60Co or Co-60) from the steel that surrounded the Taiga devices, with this fusion-generated neutron activation product being responsible for about half of the gamma dose in 2011 at the test site. This was considered a failure and the experiment was not repeated. The Operation Antler/Round 1 test by the British at the Tadje site in the Maralinga range in Australia on September 14, 1957, tested a bomb using cobalt pellets as a radiochemical tracer for estimating yield. ![]() His intent was not to propose that such a weapon be built, but to show that nuclear weapon technology would soon reach the point where it could end human life on Earth, a doomsday device. The concept of a cobalt bomb was originally described in a radio program by physicist Leó Szilárd on February 26, 1950. For cancer radiation treatments delivered from a device with a cobalt-60 isotope source, see cobalt therapy.Ī cobalt bomb is a type of " salted bomb": a nuclear weapon designed to produce enhanced amounts of radioactive fallout, intended to contaminate a large area with radioactive material, potentially for the purpose of radiological warfare, mutual assured destruction or as doomsday devices.
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