• Question: is there realy sush a powerfull bomb that could detinate the whol world

    Asked by tean to Daniel, Jon, Louise, Sharon, Zoe on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by bagpuss.
    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      At the moment, thankfully no.

      The Earth is actually pretty tough and hard to destroy completely – after all, it is basically a 6 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 kilogram ball of mostly iron.

      If you gathered together all the explosives humans have ever made (including our nuclear weapons) and set them off in one spot, yes it would cause a massive crater (and wreck the ecosystem), but it wouldn’t dent the planet.

      In the past, the Earth has survived being hit by asteroids that are the equivalent of 5 billion times the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      I don’t think there is one bomb that could be used to destroy the world, thankfully! I hope that there never is!

    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      I hope not!

      The most powerful bombs at the moment are hydrogen bombs, a particularly powerful type of nuclear bomb. There are about 22,000 nuclear bombs in the world at the moment, which is an improvement on the 65,000 in the 1980s when I was growing up!

      I had a quick internet search and most people seem to think that even if all of these bombs went off some humans would probably survive, but I really wouldn’t want to try it out to see! 🙁

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