Bizarre nuclear detonation photograph

Whilst looking through these pics showing a great many impressive (and destructive) nuclear detonation photographs I found this very strange image:


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6f10947f32d5.jpg[/atsimg]


Haven't realy ever seen anything like it before -any scientificaly minded members have an idea of the mechanics involved? It certainly is an awesome pic.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

that looks eery as hell, i would love to hear more about that

I'm no expert, but I think that's a high speed camera, close up view of an explosion right after detonation.

That looks like an above ground detonation test. I believe they were trying to make the blast focus down to destroy/flatten out as large area as possible. Similar to the Tunguska meteror blast

"The image above shows the growing fireball, taken about one millisecond after detonation, from [possibly the BOLTZMAN shot].

There are two striking features about this picture - the spikes projecting from the bottom of the fireball, and the ghostly mottling of the fireball surface.

The peculiar spikes are extensions of the fireball surface along ropes or cables that stretch from the shot cab (the housing for the test device at the top of the tower) to the ground. This novel phenomenon was named a "rope trick" by Dr. John Malik who investigated it. The effect had been observed in earlier tests when spikes were seen extending along cables that moored the shot towers to the ground. During Snapper Malik conducted experiments using different kinds of cables and ropes, and with different surface treatments. Consequently the spikes in this picture may be due to either mooring cables, or Malik's own test ropes.

The cause of the "rope trick" is the absorption of thermal radiation from the fireball by the rope. The fireball is still extremely hot (surface temperature around 20,000 degrees K at this point, some three and a half times hotter than the surface of the sun; at the center it may be more than ten times hotter) and radiates a tremendous amount of energy as visible light (intensity over 100 times greater than the sun) to which air is (surprise!) completely transparent. The rope is not transparent however, and the section of rope extending from the fireball surface gets rapidly heated to very high temperatures. The luminous vaporized rope rapidly expands and forms a spike-shaped extension of the fireball. Malik observed that if the rope was painted black spike formation was enhanced, and if it was painted with reflective paint or wrapped in aluminum foil no spikes were observed.

Cause of the surface mottling. At this point in the explosion, a true hydrodynamic shock front has just formed. Prior to this moment the growth of the fireball was due to radiative transport, i.e. thermal x-rays outran the expanding bomb debris. Now however the fireball expansion is caused by the shock front driven by hydrodynamic pressure (as in a conventional explosion, only far more intense). The glowing surface of the fireball is due to shock compression heating of the air. This means that the fireball is now growing far more slowly than before. The bomb (and shot cab) vapors were initially accelerated to very high velocities (several tens of kilometers/sec) and clumps of this material are now splashing against the back of the shock front in an irregular pattern (due to initial variations in mass distribution around the bomb core), creating the curious mottled appearance.

The photograph was shot by a Rapatronic camera built by EG&G. Since each camera could record only one exposure on a sheet of film, banks of four to 10 cameras were set up to take sequences of photographs. The average exposure time was three millionths of a second. The cameras were last used at the Test Site in 1962."

simplethinking.com...

Neat, haven't seen that before, looks almost like the shockwave from the initial detonation expanding, , maust've been a very fast shutter speed to capture it like that, I mean we take high speed images all the time these days , but seeing as it's in black and white I can only hazard a guess it was taken in the 60's?

The spikey bits at the bottom? may have been the holding cradle, melted and thrown down, ?
who knows?

cool explantion above, got in a split second before me, well done.
star for that alone.

[edit on 19/11/09 by DataWraith]

No.. you got it wrong.. that's not the explosion itself.. that's the thing they want to nuke!

kinda reminds me of my mother-in-law.

Seriously.. no clue.

Just a guess, but I think that is the shockwave ( Prandtl–Glauert singularity) before the actual explosion. It possibly has to do with the atmospheric conditions at the time of the, like the amount of humidity.

Now thats an awesome find...S+ F


its like alien creatures arrived O.o

it look like the detonation occured in the air for me

The camera used to take the picture is called a Raptronic Camera.

Developed by Dr. Harold Edgerton in the 1940s, the Rapatronic photographic technique allowed very early times in a nuclear explosion's fireball growth to be recorded on film. The exposures were often as short as 10 nanoseconds, and each Rapatronic camera would take exactly one photograph.

A bank of four to ten or more such cameras were arranged at tests to record different moments of early fireball growth.

They provide technical information about the device's disassembly. In some of the images shown below, accelerating bomb debris 'splashes' on a relatively slower growing fireball surface, creating irregularities and mottling.

Great image. If anyone likes nuclear detonations, you should look for "Atomic Journey" narrated by the delightful William Shatner. It has loads of footage of these detonations including a unique film of a double fireball from a nuclear shell, fired from a huge cannon. Destructive as hell, strangely compulsive though...

Edit to add: the Pacific blasts are amazing, the waves cover an island forcing the cameramen to climb trees!

Another point of interest is a cameraman who talks about the Hiroshima bomb. He suggests that dropping it into the Pacific and calling up the Japanese and saying "Look out of the window" may have been a better alternative... Good point.

[edit on 19/11/2009 by Sendran]

reply to post by Kaytagg

I was gonna say, looks like short exposure right after explosion on one of those test towers, when they were testing what difference it makes between being on the ground and a distance above ground.

Did not know why the spikes were there though!

reply to post by Ridhya

If you check Kaytaggs post above, they say its from the mooring wires that held the platform in place.

reply to post by karl 12


There is a video clip of something very similar,but in colour in the film "Trinity and beyond"(Which is an awsome film about the development of nukes,narrated by William Shatner).

www.imdb.com...

Its not a airburst but a actual explosion set off from a tower (you can see the tower just visible underneath the 1ms burst.)

Airbusts are more destructive in that they create a ripple of air that flows further than the initial bomb destroys, as it compresses the air and uses that energy as a wake. Hence why Airbursts are now favourable as ground-based explosions cause mininimal damage compared to the vacuum effect.

reply to post by defcon5

I totally already did, I meant the last line like a, 'thanks for that information Kaytagg' kind of thing

This looks like it might have been the same design as the first India shot "smiling Buddha". Since it appears this detonation occurred in a US desert location could India have reverse engineered the technology from stolen classified photos?

Thanks for the Tulips?

[edit on 19-11-2009 by fromunclexcommunicate]

Reminds me of Ivy mike [first H bomb, whatever h bomb] the detonation @ prox. 1:40..The "fireworks before the cloud appears.




actually, exactly like this frame shown here...

To be honest, the first thing that came into my mind when i saw this picture of Karl 12 was....potato...[which just came out of the ground]



[edit on 19-11-2009 by Foppezao]

reply to post by Kaytagg


Thanks for the replies,it certainly is quite a freaky picture.
Kaytagg, appreciate the link -the description of the photograph doesn't realy get any more comprehensive than that.


Don't know if anyone remembers this British scientific docu-drama about nuclear warfare
from 1984 but it still remains one of the most scariest films I've ever seen.

Threads

Google Video Link

en.wikipedia.org...

Cheers.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Ive seen this before, but still a good find!
That has to be one of the eeriest photos ive ever seen.

I wonder what causes the "tunnels" within the explosion. You would assume that such a force like that would spread out evenly fairly evenly.