Nukes in space

[Hypochondriac]

How do nukes aboard earth ships work in space don't they loose effectiveness in a vacuum? I always assumed all you would get in space was a radiation burst and thats it.

On earth isn't the majority of the damage caused by a compressive wave? In space won't you just get radiation, and a minimal shock wave?

[Akai]

There is no shock wave in space. The thermal pulse and shock wave from a nuclear explosion are created by the radiation and blast heating and producing pressure waves in a fluid (air). In space there is no air (well technically not none, even space isn't a perfect vacuum, but there isn't enough to have an effect). The bomb would blow itself apart, and you'd get a HUGE burst of radiation, and that's about it. There wouldn't really be a physical "blast" because there is no medium in space to transmit such a blast. It might look like a small sun for a brief instant (a lot of the radiation emitted is visible light). However, if one was beamed into a ship (say a Wraith hive ship)...there's air inside the ship so you would get the traditional effects in there. The shock wave produced by the exploding Asgard ship in "Small Victories" was probably a Hollywood creation as well, though with the Asgard tech maybe it was an energy wave or something.

[Mister Oragahn]

Detonate nukes very close to the hull of a ship and you'll heat up the hull. Nuclear levels will make the hull explode anyway, and will heat up the air inside.
Thus there would be a fireball that originates from the inside of the ship, and reaches outside more or less like a rocket.

[VSHARMA]

Possibly why a BattleStar can take so many Nukes in space

[s09119]

Possibly why a BattleStar can take so many Nukes in space

I was just gonna say that...

[Semmer]

The kinetic energy of the radiation particles from the nuke is huge, and is able to cause significant damage.

[Hypochondriac]

The kinetic energy of the radiation particles from the nuke is huge, and is able to cause significant damage.

But it doesn't come anywhere near the damage that would be caused within an atmosphere right?

[Semmer]

But it doesn't come anywhere near the damage that would be caused within an atmosphere right?

Right, because there's no substances to deliver a shockwave.

[Buba uognarf]

Right, because there's no substances to deliver a shockwave.

Presumably in an asteroid field or a nebula there would be a shockwave though.

[Platschu]

Maybe a stupid question, but can a nuke explode in space? I think the NASA never made such tests, so we can imagine only or begin a computer simulation.

[PG15]

Nukes have been exploded pretty close to space:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear...uclear_testing

Even though asteroid fields and nebulas are denser than the Intersteller Medium, they are still very VERY diffused when compared to the air on Earth; it really wouldn't make that much of a difference, I think.

[Buba uognarf]

Nukes have been exploded pretty close to space:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear...uclear_testing

Even though asteroid fields and nebulas are denser than the Intersteller Medium, they are still very VERY diffused when compared to the air on Earth; it really wouldn't make that much of a difference, I think.

I know it wouldn't be the same but surely the detontation would send asteroid chunks flying and propel the gas in the nebula in a sort of shockwave.

[Arania]

Although they may create a shockwave when detonated in a nebula, its unlikely that it would contribute AT ALL to the overall destructive power of the weapon. If anything, it would lower the energy output by absorbing some of the thermal radiation.

Of course, a nuke in space would just look like a flashbulb going off. Albeit a VERY bright flashbulb. The nuke would detonate, there would be a singular pulse of Gamma, X-Ray, Visual and Thermal radiation, along with a small cloud of plasma from the vaporised weapon casing. No shockwave, no fireball, just one big-ass flash.

Of course, range would be limited, as without the shockwave, you are limited to direct radiation interaction, and, as you are in a vacuum, the radiation would spread omnidirectionally, meaning that radiation intensity is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance from the detonation. Not to mention that you'd only get 1/2 absorbtion AT MOST if it was detonated outside the ship.

[HAL]

Then should nukes work at all against ships with shields?



Since dont shields block radiation :I

[Mister Oragahn]

An interesting point is that nukes see their power limited and delayed in atmosphere, as the former blast create an opaque shell, after an interaction with the ozone, that within a fraction of a second, which the energy released from intense X-rays can't burst through until the shell becomes more transparent.
These times stretch as the yield increases.
That "smog" wouldn't exist in space, so a target would be immediately hit with every form of rays, including the particularily powerful hard X-rays.