Okay, in sci-fi shows you see ships and torpedoes explode in huge fireballs all the time. What I want to know is what would really happen – lets say I launch a megaton nuke into space, and hit the red button to detonate it once it’s nice and far away (microgravity environment, no atmosphere, near-absolute zero temperature). Is there an explosion? If so, what does it look like ? Is there any kind of “shock wave”?
Not that I plan on blowing up anything in space anytime soon…
<Insert evil laughter here>
Space being the near perfect vacuum that it is, there is no medium through which a shock wave could propagate. Also, as a result of space being a vacuum, I’m sure you could convince something to explode.
Fireballs? If you could ignite whatever was flammable on board a space vehicle before the enclosed oxygen all dissipated, you might get some flame, but it wouldn’t last long (like a flash, perhaps).
All musings, no research done.
IANASM
I don’t know about the nuke; I imagine its explosive effect would be muted compared to what you’d see on Earth.
I’m not sure this will help much, but in the nuclear test documentary “Trinity and Beyond”, you can see some footage of nuclear warheads exploded in the upper atmosphere* over the pacific. First, there was a flash of what looked like daylight (The test footage was at night), and the explosions themselves looked like blue spheres, and as I recall, during one zoom shot, you can see little whisps of “gas” (Plasma? Does anyone here know for sure?) along the edge of the “sphere” as it expanded. There wasn’t any shockwave that I could see. (Probably because, as beatle said, this was in a near or total vacuum)
Anyway, I’m sure you can find details of this test somewhere online, or you can find a copy of “Trinity” somewhere. The Learning Channel airs it occasionally, as I remember.
*I’m not sure of the actual altitude, by some definitions the upper atmosphere can include the traces of hydrogen in Earth orbit, and you can be considered in “space” at an altitude of 62 miles, As I Recall.
Ranchoth
“Oya closed her eyes, and prepared to burn.”
As part of the test series called Operation Dominic a 1.4 megaton warhead was detonated at an altitude of about 250 miles (roughly the same altitude that the International Space Station orbits at, for comparison). The launch was from Johnston Atoll; judging from the series of pictures on that page labelled “Starfish Prime as seen from Honolulu” (800 miles from the launch point), it was pretty damned spectacular.
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