Nuking Jupiter is a concept we have seen in many science fiction movies, but what if we actually tried to do it? This is the premise of the video “Top 7 Biggest Things We Tried to Nuke” where the biggest, baddest bombs on Earth are used to blow up Jupiter. The video explores the number of nukes that would be needed, the obstacles these bombs would encounter on the way, and the potential outcome of such a nuclear explosion on the gas giant.
The video goes on to explain the explosive power of nuclear weapons and the challenges of transporting them to Jupiter. It also delves into the potential risks of navigating through the asteroid belt, as well as the effects of a nuclear explosion on Jupiter.
Additionally, the video poses an intriguing scenario of attempting to nuke the sun in order to power it back to life. It explores the logistics of gathering the world’s nuclear arsenal, the cost of sending the bombs into space, and the challenges of building a spaceship that can withstand the extreme temperatures near the sun.
Overall, the video offers a thought-provoking and entertaining exploration of the hypothetical scenarios of using nuclear weapons on celestial bodies. It raises interesting questions about the potential consequences and challenges of such endeavors, making it a compelling watch for anyone interested in science and space exploration.
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Video Transcript
Jupiter may be the biggest planet in the solar system but its days are numbered because today we’re using Earth’s biggest baddest bombs to blow the gas giant into Oblivion how many nukes would you need to do the job what obstacles would these rocket bound bombs encounter on the
Way and would one nuclear explosion ignite the entire planet this is what if and here’s what would happen if we nuked Jupiter nuclear weapons are so powerful that even the low yield versions like those dropped on Japan by the United States in World War II have the explosive equivalent of 15 to 20
Kilotons of dynamite each what makes them so volatile is that they harness the intense energy relasing power of nuclear fishing or Fusion these are the same processes that happen in our very own Sun so be careful when moving these things out to Jupiter one false move and you could be
Incinerated by a fireball as hot as the center of the Sun in order to blow Jupiter to bits one single bomb wouldn’t necessarily be up for the task good thing for this scenario that there are a lot of nuclear weapons on Earth maybe the safest plan
Would be getting them all off our planet anyway given the top secret nature of military activities it’s hard to know the exact number but estimates put the global Arsenal at about 12,700 with the United States and Russia battling for top spot with 5500 to 6,000 weapons each okay there’s no use in delaying
Let’s get these rockets off Earth as fast as possible the distance between Earth and Jupiter fluctuates from about 590 million to 970 million km in the past missions like the G Leo space probe took nearly 5 years to make the journey to the gas giant but our Rockets wouldn’t
Take this long Galileo had to be slow enough to enter Jupiter’s orbit we just need to hit the planet head on so you’d only be looking at about 550 to 650 days to get the job done you shouldn’t be too Reckless and Speedy though you don’t want to Nuke something else by accident
Now bypassing the Moon Moon and Mars would be easy enough but getting safely through the asteroid belt would be like navigating a Minefield there are millions of asteroids riddled between Mars and Jupiter and while the average distance between them is a not so worrisome 966 th000
Km sometimes it can still get a little cramped in there and Jupiter is partly to blame for this the planet’s massive gravitational influence causes many of these to group into clusters known as families carelessly navigate through one like the Flora family and you’d better hope none of our Rockets would collide
With any of its 400 Asteroids for the best chance of success you should aim to transport your Rockets through the Kirkwood gaps these are nearly asteroid free regions in the belt because you’d hate to see all of our planet’s nukes detonate themselves in a blinding Chain Reaction before reaching our
Target as the first of our bombs exploded on Jupiter you’d see bright flashes back here on Earth just like when the Shoemaker leing n Comet slammed into Jupiter in 1994 but that only released 5% as much energy as the SAR bomba the largest bomb ever created so with thousands of our
Nuclear bombs Jupiter’s days would have to be numbered right well not exactly even though our nukes could produce an explosion hotter than the sun this wouldn’t cause all the hydrogen on Jupiter to ignite it just isn’t dense enough to sustain nuclear fusion and even if every bomb was detonated Jupiter wouldn’t blow up
Completely either in order to do that we’d need to unleash as much energy as the sun Rel releases over 160 years all at once and for that highly energetic result about 1 billion billion nukes would be required somewhat more than the 12,700 in our Arsenal to build that many
Bombs you’d need a combined mass of material that would almost be twice that of the largest moon in the solar system Jupiter’s gany me no small feet since it’s bigger than Pluto and Mercury Humanity’s nuclear Arsenal is capable of destroying all life on Earth over and over and over maybe it’s time
We dumped it far away now we might want to inhabit other planets in the future so how about our closest star how many nukes could we throw at the Sun what would be the price tag for this Mission and could we accidentally destroy our only source of
Daylight this is what if and here’s what would happen if we nuked the sun the sun is mainly made of hydrogen and helium the temperatures and pressures at its Center are extremely high so high that the hydrogen atoms fuse together and become helium that process releases enormous amounts of
Energy that powers the sun it’s known as fusion and you know what else uses Fusion to power up yeah that’s right most modern nuclear weapons get their destructive energy from fusing hydrogen Isotopes this is why they’re often called hydrogen bombs or Fusion bombs around 5 billion years from now the sun
Will run out of hydrogen and die a dead sun is terrible news for Earth because we will die along with the star now if humans managed to stick around for that long we would be scrambling for ways to keep the sun fueled and running and if we were also still interested in
Getting rid of our destructive hydrogen Fusion bombs could we nuke the Sun and power it back to life well first things first we would need to gather each and every single nuke on the planet this wouldn’t be easy since the nine countries that are known to possess nukes are extremely
Suspicious of each other but if the other option is the guarant gu aned death of our only son they could be willing to give up their weapons of mass destruction for the cause take my gun from me how big is Humanity’s Arsenal you might ask well at least
13,000 nuclear bombs big each of them with the explosive power of at least 100 kilotons of dynamite the United States alone is estimated to have 650 bombs that are 60 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II if you were overseeing this explosive
Operation you would need to be extremely careful after all you definitely wouldn’t want to have a surprise detonation if every one of these Fusion bombs went off the explosion would lead to so much debris being injected into the atmosphere that it would trigger a nuclear winter that’s because sunlight
Would be unable to reach the Earth’s surface cue the worldwide below freezing temperatures ecosystems collapsing and nuclear fallout this accident would devastate all living beings humans and animals alike in trying to save the sun Humanity could block itself from all of its Warm Rays ironic isn’t it so yeah you’d need
To Handle With Care you’d also have to sharpen your fundraising skills if a modern nuke has a MK close to the one dropped on Nagasaki sending it to space would cost around $170 billion and that’s just for one bomb out of the 13,000 it’s fair to say the whole world
Economy would need to bend and break in order to subsidize the survival of the Sun and Humanity even if you did come up with the cash there are far hotter challenges ahead like how do you build a spaceship that doesn’t melt as it approaches the Sun the closest a spacecraft has come to
Our star is 8 and2 million kilm even at that distance it’s still had to endure temperatures of 1,377 De C only thanks to a thermal shield made up of carbon composite material was it able to withstand the scorching heat however we send our hydrogen bombs into space it will have
To incorporate a much improved version of this protection system so add that to the bill and there would still be a mountain of remaining technical op obstacles like finding the safest location to launch the nukes into space or developing the technology that will allow us to Monitor and control them
From such a massive distance but let’s say you managed to do it all our nukes are in orbit and within launching distance to the Sun this is it you send the order to fire all the hydrogen bombs into our hydrogen fueled star now you wait to see how it begins to
Recharge just a little longer little longer nothing seems to happen the anchor of our solar system continues to die but how well as colossal as the power of our 13,000 nukes might seem this punch is nothing compared to what the sun is packing right now our star emits over 70
Million times more energy per second than all of our nuclear weapons combined even if it were running out of hydrogen to fuse into helium throwing our hydrogen bombs at it to feed it would be like throwing a box of matches into a forest fire you’d barely make a dent in
The blaze yeah that’s a bummer but at least you didn’t destroy what little remains of our decaying Sun if that was your intent you’d need something with a lot more Firepower meet the antimatter bomb when the Big Bang created the universe it did so with an equal amount of matter and
Antimatter matter is what you the Earth the Sun and most things are made of antimatter on the other hand is composed of subatomic particles with properties opposite to those of normal matter put a little simpler it’s the inverse of matter when a particle of matter collides with an anti-particle of
Antimatter they annihilate each other in a flash of energy if enough of those two camps came in contact with each other it would lead to a massive explosion also known as an antimatter bomb but here’s the catch antimatter is incredibly rare if you pulled together all the antimatter on the planet you’d
End up with only around 20 nanog a single nanog is only 1 billionth of a gram that is so little that even if it were combined with matter you wouldn’t even have enough energy to to boil a cup of tea now you could produce more antimatter but that would cost you at least
2.7 quadrillion dollar for just one gam and remember we’re here to save the Sun not destroy It today we’re dropping a big bomb into the deepest part of the ocean so grab a surfboard and get ready to hang 10 on the waves of a massive nuclear tsunami how would you deliver a nuke to the bottom of the Mariana Trench what would this underwater explosion be
Like and what kind of Destruction would it cause this is what if and here’s what would happen if we nuked the Mariana Trench welcome to the deepest darkest depths of the ocean the Mariana Trench is located in the Western Pacific Ocean just 360 km away from the island of Guam
You’ll be traveling down 11 km to Challenger Deep the deepest point of the trench here you could stack a about 30 empire state buildings on top of each other before hitting the surface you’d be among the brave few to venture into these High Press pitch black and near freezing
Waters joining the company of scientists a naval officer and even filmmaker James Cameron but you’ll be carrying the most precious cargo of all the biggest nuclear bomb ever made okay wait before you worry about what would happen if you exploded a bomb at the bottom of the trench you’d want
To figure out how to get it there safely if a bomb accidentally exploded near the surface it could be dangerous for many people you could think of it as a massive nuclear tsunami waves hundreds of meters high spreading out in all directions this could create a hazardous situation
For the islands neighboring the Mariana Trench like Guam Japan or the Philippines luckily these waves would behave differently than your regular tsunami waves they would break earlier that means they’d be smaller and less catastrophic when they reached land but still better to avoid this crisis and get that bomb safely down into the
Trench to do this you’d have to protect it from extremely high pressures at the bottom of the trench the pressure is so high it would be like having 100 adult elephants on your head you’d want to use a special pressure vessel to transport the bomb just like operation Wigwam in
1955 the United States detonated a bomb at a depth of 600 M it was twice as powerful as the bomb dropped on hoshima the explosion generated a massive bubble across the water and deadly radioactive contamination spread across 13 Square km but your bomb would be the largest
Nuke ever created more like the SAR Bomba this nuclear weapon was over 3,000 times more powerful than little boy the bomb dropped on Nagasaki and you’d have to take it much much deeper than the Wigwam test at the moment of detonation a bubble of hot steam would expand rapidly
In just a few seconds it would cover an area of about 1 km on the surface you’d see a massive bulge in the water but it wouldn’t reach Great Heights that’s because you would detonate the bomb so deep that the water pressure above would cause the bubble to
Collapse but within a few seconds that bubble would shrink then start to expand outward again this expansion and contraction would continue for three or four Cycles this would leave the water turbulent hot and mixed with radioactive debris at least no neighboring coastal cities would have to worry about being wiped out by a
Tsunami but you certainly wouldn’t see the effects ending there The increased temperatures from the explosion could create intense hurricanes and the turbulent Waters and radioactive material would have adverse effects on marine life there would be Mass casualties from the explosion and deep sea fish could be blinded by the
Bright flash of light over time you could see unexpected or surprising effects on the ecosystem near the detonation site there are corals as big as cars after the 23 detonations at the US nuclear testing site on bikini at tol not to mention an abundance of aquatic animal life One day Mars could look like This allowing humans to comfortably live on the planet all we’d need to do is to terraform it but how well we could nuke it would dropping nukes on Mars make it easier to live there this is what if and here’s what would happen if we nuked
Mars believe it or not this is something scientists have considered for decades Elon Musk of SpaceX seems to think that nuking Mars might be one of the best and quickest options to make it a place where humans could live the idea is that we would explode thermonuclear
Bombs in the sky over the planet’s Two Poles this would heat up the ice caps and release carbon dioxide and water from the poles then the greenhouse effect would take place it would heat up the whole planet making the surface more habitable so this all sounds super quick
And easy why haven’t we done this yet it’s because there’s a high chance that nuking Mars might not work out the way we want it to there are many things that could go wrong with this plan the first problem is it’s all just Theory and the theory could be wrong that’s
Because Mars has been losing its atmosphere for a long time Earth’s atmosphere is almost 100 times thicker than Mars’s and if we’re going to live on Mars it needs a thicker atmosphere some scientists think that we could release CO2 from the North and South poles and this could make Mars’s
Atmosphere more like Earth’s but a 2018 study published in nature astronomy found that even if the nukes are successful it would only increase Mars’s atmosphere to 7% of what Earth has even if we create more carbon dioxide in Mars’s atmosphere it’s still wouldn’t be nearly enough to heat the planet and the
Planet could seriously use more heat since its current temperature averages around – 63° and it would take decades for the red planet to warm up even after it gained the extra CO2 So in theory this could delay humans from ever landing on Mars not only that but this assumes that
Dropping thermonuclear bombs on the planet would go perfectly keep in mind these are nukes you know the things that can destroy entire cities in in fact the bombs we’d use on Mars would be 1,000 times stronger than the ones used in World War II if a bomb exploded on the
Planet’s surface instead of up in the atmosphere some severe damage would occur Not only would it completely destroy parts of the planet’s surface it would also cause even more radiation another thing that would delay us from ever settling on Mars it’s also very likely that instead of warming Mars a
Bomb could cause a nuclear winter this could happen from the dust and particles in the atmosphere caused by nuclear explosions they’d almost entirely block out the sun causing Mars to cool down even more so nuking Mars probably isn’t the best idea and maybe we should get some
Humans on the planet in its natural state before we start trying to change it doomsday is here a nuclear bomb has just Unleashed hell right in front of your eyes the land turns to Ash and scatters in the wind in just moments you have mere seconds to get to safety but
Once that blast hits how could the light burn your skin why should you never look at the explosion and how can taking off your clothes save your life this is what if and here’s what would happen if a nuke exploded near you once that missile launches you can’t
Escape what’s coming next but what are you facing well four types of energy are about to be Unleashed first a blast wave would rip through the landscape knocking you around like a ragd doll and destroying buildings after that brace yourself for intense light followed by skin melting heat and deadly
Radiation then a hot bubble of gas will form a fireball that will vaporize everything inside it all that dust debris will shoot up into the air creating the iconic mushroom cloud even if you somehow survived this nightmare why would your life never be the same
Again so far only one nation has used a nuclear bomb against its enemy the first of the two bombs dropped on Japan by the United States during World War II little boy decimated Hiroshima it had the strength of 15 kilotons of TNT but that’s nothing compared to what nuclear weapons are packing
Today the most powerful is 80 times stronger than what hit Hiroshima now while that would be devastating and level everything for miles it wouldn’t make our planet at a nuclear Wasteland you on the other hand well you wouldn’t be so lucky if you happened to be in the blast vicinity your days would
Be numbered remember that intense bright light yeah well that flash is strong enough to burn your skin off these intense flash Burns can be fatal and they killed 50% of the people who died in Japan and here’s hoping you didn’t stare Direct ly into that blast because this devastating light would
Oversaturate your retinal pigments and leave you blind flash blindness can go away after 2 minutes if the explosion happens during the day but at night you could be blinded for much longer and if you weren’t sheltered you may not survive what’s coming next in just a fraction of a second the
Nuclear Fireball would EXP expand out like a balloon Rising into the sky the heat from that fireball would send out a blast wave that would rip you and the ground under you apart if you didn’t make it indoors before the blast the super sonic wave might kill you by
Ripping off your skin or sending you flying through the air then a violent burst of thermal radiation would be released and head right toward you and unfortunately for you it’s only going to get worse next a second pulse would hit lasting a few seconds this time this
Wave would carry 99% of the total thermal radiation from the nuke you could be 8 km away and still suffer first-degree burns from this detonation and all that would happen in a matter of moments then the resulting mushroom cloud would would Tower above everything so what would you do
Now well even if you only suffered third degree burns the pain would be enough to send your body into instant shock hospitals if there were any left in the area would be so overrun with other victims that you might not get treated for hours gamma and neutron radiation would
Cover everything the first minute after the blast if you somehow lived through that blast wave and the fiery Heat this radiation might kill you as the dust settles the radioactive particles would penetrate everything making the blast site hazardous for months if not years radiation exposure could lead to brain
Seizures and cancer it might even reduce the to avoid that lethal Fallout you’d have to run and hide you’d have about 10 minutes before the radiation hits so hustle and get to a concrete or brick building to shelter you for the next 24 hours and you’re going to want to get
Naked if you take off your radiated clothes you could remove up to 90% of the radioactive material clinging to you so save your modesty for another time now since you’ve stripped down wash yourself with soap and water to get rid of any remaining radioactive particles now there probably wouldn’t be any power
Left but you’d have to keep the air conditioning and the fans off if there was otherwise contaminated air from the outside could come In an asteroid races toward Earth it’s big it’s fast and it’s about to do a lot of damage but we’re not just going to sit around and wait for the end of days we’re going to fight back forever what would happen if we nuked an asteroid would it save Humanity or make things
Worse how does a nuclear blast in space compared to a blast on Earth and would our nukes even be strong enough to destroy it this is what if and here’s what would happen if we nuked an asteroid in the year 2175 the asteroid benu will pass by
Earth and there’s a 1 in 2700 chance that it will hit us if those sound like good odds to you think again benu is taller than the Empire State Building and it’s 15 times heavier than the Great Pyramid of Giza and if it hit the earth
It would release as much energy as 23 SAR bomas which is the largest hydrogen bomb ever exploded do you still like those odds I’d like them a little more if we had a contingency plan for NASA that’s the hypervelocity asteroid mitigation mission for emergency response also known as hammer
And just like its name suggests the plan is to Ram into an incoming asteroid or to detonate a nuke that will send it off course but will it be enough and what sort of repercussions could we expect the sooner we discover an asteroid heading our way the safer we’ll
Be for example if if we detected an incoming asteroid a year in advance we’d only have to change its course by a few centimeters to keep it from hitting Earth to do this we could detonate a nuclear bomb a few hundred met away from the asteroid causing it to change its
Course and move away from Earth and if that didn’t work we could just crash into the asteroid with the most powerful bomb we’ve got but if anything we to malfunction before the bomb reached the asteroid the resulting consequences might even be worse than the asteroid hitting
Earth but once the nuke was in Space the world’s population would be relatively safe with no atmosphere out there only vacuum the blast would Disappear Completely but the radiation would be much stronger while people on Earth would be safe anyone in any nearby spaceships would be risking their lives
In the interest of preventing as many casualties as possible this would have to be an automated Mission and assuming that nothing goes wrong and there isn’t some kind of AI Mutiny we could very well succeed in pushing an asteroid off course as long as it wasn’t too big a bigger asteroid would require
Bolder tactics such as Dart Dart stands for double asteroid redirection test NASA plans to slam into an asteroid in 20122 to change its orbit the impact would be equal to 3 tons of TNT this Mission could result in the first ever man-made meteorite shower and
If it works it will serve as a blueprint of how we could respond to asteroid threats in the future of course when it comes to destroying benu the bomb will’ll use will be at least a million times stronger than what DART will be packing and yes we’ve got nukes that are that
Powerful the only thing we’d have to look out for after blowing up a giant asteroid is space debris The debris could severely damage our satellites and endanger any astronauts aboard the International Space Station and if any larger chunks of the asteroid found their way down to earth
They could create craters up to 20 times their Size on the bright side if the nuke exploded close enough to Earth the radiation it emits would be distorted by our planet’s magnetic field which would probably be the prettiest light show you’d ever see or if you don’t want to wait for a doomsday scenario you could just take a
Trip up north to see the Northern Lights it’s crazy to think that nuking asteroids is a potential survival plan for Humanity but considering it’s us against well pretty much anything in the infinite void of space we have to make do with what we have volcanoes the ultimate natural force of Destruction their
Unforgiving uncompromised iing and Unstoppable about 1500 volcanoes around the world are considered to be active with more than 10% of them in the United States is there any way we could stop them before the destruction begins could we literally Fight Fire with Fire what if we nuked an active
Volcano would it solve the problem or make it way worse this is what if and here’s what would happen if we nuked an active volcano volcanoes are as cool as they are terrifying they are an incredible force of nature capable of destroying our lives on their path of
Destruction but could we give them a taste of their own medicine how could we nuke such a fiery Inferno Well we’d need to bring out the big guns the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima Japan during World War II was the equivalent of over 130 million kg of
TNT that had plenty of impact could we use something like it to blow a volcano to smithin First we’d have to figure out the target while it’s difficult to predict when a volcano will erupt there are some warning signs watch for things like tiny earthquakes releases of steam and other
Gases from the volcano’s mouth and bulging from the sides sounds like my last date that being said whether the volcano will erupt is still a massive educated guess so let’s say that our scientists locked on to an active volcano that’s ready to blow it would be a miracal if
They could coordinate with the military fast enough to try and stop it ideally we’d be able to predict it a few days before the volcano was about to explode this would provide more than enough time for people to pack up their belongings and evacuate without causing the kinds
Of highway traffic jams we see during hurricanes tsunamis and other disasters with everyone out of Harm’s Way geologists volcanologists and weapons experts would determine any weak spots on a volcano’s sides that could be hit effectively next a highly trained crew of of Pilots would fly over the volcano
Drop their payload and get the heck out of Dodge if things worked perfectly as in if they used the exact right amount of explosives and hit the perfect spot in exactly the right way the top of the volcano would crumble into itself keeping the magma mostly underground
There might still be some seepage around the base of the volcano but it wouldn’t be anything like how the eruption would have played out naturally but if we’re being honest it would be like trying to put out fire with gasoline geologists warn that trying to bomb a volcano might actually make
Things worse a lot worse the explosion of the bomb mixed with the buildup of pressure inside a volcano could amplify the eruption the force would release even more Ash and lava spreading it even further than it would have gone with the volcano’s own power and that if we managed to hit the
Target if the nuke missed its Target there’s still a nuclear bomb being dropped in an area where people live or at least near enough that they would feel the effects of the radiation if you had to pick one which would you choose death by lava or nuclear
Destruction we can’t bomb our way out of this problem the same way we can’t stop magma from building up under volcanoes here at what if we’ve tried throwing trash and pouring liquid nitrogen into volcanoes long story short it doesn’t work don’t mess with volcanoes as cool as it sounds on paper
Nuking a volcano just won’t work while man-made Firepower can be impressive nature isn’t quaking in its boots at what we can do but since our trigger fingers are itchy what if we tried combating another natural disaster with a nuke what if we nuked a hurricane well that’s a story for another what If Jupiter maybe the biggest planet in the solar system but it’s day
Video “Top 7 Biggest Things We Tried to Nuke” was uploaded on 02/14/2024 to Youtube Channel What If