P. D

Theoretically, it is a thermonuclear warhead, in which the last shell contains not uranium-238, but cobalt. Natural cobalt is a monoisotopic element, it consists of 100% cobalt-59. During an explosion, this shell is irradiated with a strong neutron flux. As a result of neutron capture, the stable cobalt-59 nucleus is converted into the radioactive isotope cobalt-60. The half-life of cobalt-60 is 5.2 years; as a result of the beta decay of this nuclide, nickel-60 is formed in an excited state, which then passes to the ground state, emitting one or more gamma rays.

Story

The idea of a cobalt bomb was described in February 1950 by physicist Leo Szilard, who suggested that an arsenal of cobalt bombs would be capable of destroying all humanity on the planet (the so-called Doomsday Machine, English Doomsday device, DDD). Cobalt was chosen as an element that, as a result of neutron activation, produces highly active and at the same time relatively long-lasting radioactive contamination. When using other elements, you can get contamination with isotopes with a long half-life, but their activity will be insufficient. There are also shorter-lived isotopes than cobalt-60, such as gold-198, zinc-65, sodium-24, but due to their rapid decay, part of the population may survive in bunkers.

The “Doomsday Machine” invented by Szilard - a thermonuclear explosive device capable of producing enough cobalt-60 to destroy all of humanity - does not involve any delivery means. A state (or terrorist organization) can use it as a tool of blackmail, threatening to detonate the Doomsday Machine on its territory and thereby destroy both its population and the rest of humanity. After the explosion, radioactive cobalt-60 will be carried throughout the planet by atmospheric currents over several months.

In the early 2000s, information appeared in the Russian press with reference to an interview with Colonel General E. A. Negin to foreign journalists that the group of Academician A. D. Sakharov allegedly offered N. S. Khrushchev to make a ship with cobalt plating containing a large amount of deuterium next to a nuclear bomb. If detonated off the east coast of America, radioactive fallout would fall on US territory.

Cobalt bombs in culture

Notes

The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (unavailable link), Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan (editors), United States Department of Defense and Department of Energy, Washington, D.C.
1.6 Cobalt Bombs and other Salted Bombs (undefined) . Nuclearweaponarchive.org. Retrieved February 10, 2011. Archived July 28, 2012.
Ramzaev V. et al. Radiological investigations at the “Taiga” nuclear explosion site: Site description and in situ measurements (English) // Journal of Environmental Radioactivity. - 2011. - Vol. 102. - Iss. 7. - P. 672-680. - DOI:10.1016/j.jenvrad.2011.04.003.
Ramzaev V. et al. Radiological investigations at the “Taiga” nuclear explosion site, part II: man-made γ-ray emitting radionuclides in the ground and the resulting kerma rate in air (English) // Journal of Environmental Radioactivity. - 2012. - Vol. 109. - P. 1-12. -

Having survived the Second World War, humanity almost immediately found itself in a new protracted conflict between the USSR and the United States. This incident went down in history as the Cold War. The confrontation between the two powers lasted for more than 40 years, which gave rise to many horror stories. The American population was frightened by nuclear submarines, and Soviet citizens by cruise missiles.

But the most important horror during the Cold War was the cobalt bomb, it was also called “dirty” - the latest radiological weapon, capable of turning into dust all life on the planet for a long time, after which the globe would become a radioactive desert.

Reality or myth

The idea of destroying the enemy with radioactive radiation originated a long time ago. It should be noted that the idea of creating a cobalt arsenal came not to scientists and military personnel, but to the famous American science fiction author Robert Heinlein.

In 1940, while a not very famous writer wrote a story, it told the story of the powers that were part of the anti-Hitler coalition, which bombed Germany with radiological weapons.

This unexpected blow forced the Germans to capitulate.

An interesting fact is that in the story, the creation of a nuclear warhead failed, which is why the Allies used a “dirty” bomb. At that time, military officers and scientists were confident that it was impossible to create such weapons.

The idea of a cobalt bomb was described by physicist Leo Szilard in the 1950s. He suggested that the use of such a projectile would lead to the death of all life on planet Earth. It should be noted that the existence of a cobalt bomb has not yet been officially confirmed by anyone.

Writers and screenwriters widely use this ammunition in their creations. They show the consequences awaiting humanity after the use of such weapons. Maybe for this reason, the idea of creating a cobalt bomb remains only an idea on paper.

Design and Application

A nuclear explosion produces a certain number of different radioactive isotopes. Many of them have a short half-life, so the radiation can drop significantly in a matter of hours after the explosion.

You can wait out this period in a special bunker, and after a few years the affected areas can again be used for economic activity.

This can be seen in the example of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, raised from ruins 4 years after the atomic bombing.

A cobalt bomb, in theory, is a type of nuclear weapon; from its use, territories are contaminated with radioactive elements (even after a weak explosion). It is a means of mass destruction, not instantaneous. A bomb or other ammunition is a thermonuclear charge, the last shell of which contains not uranium-238, but cobalt. The design was proposed by the American scientist Szilard.

Cobalt is a naturally occurring mineral, a monoisotopic element consisting of 100% cobalt-59. From the explosion, the shell is irradiated with a strong neutron flux, from which the cobalt-59 core becomes a radioactive isotope of cobalt-60, its half-life lasts more than five years.

Pundits have even calculated how much cobalt is needed to completely destroy our planet. It turned out that 510 tons of cobalt-60 isotope would be enough, and no bunker could save us from this.

The design of the first “dirty” bomb was similar to those described by science fiction author Heinlein: ordinary containers stuffed with radiological material (previously obtained as a result of synthesis) and an explosive charge.

At a certain height, the shell exploded, spreading isotopes. Szilard proposed his design a little later.

A term was coined for radiological weapons: a doomsday machine. They do not need to bomb an enemy state; it will be enough to blow it up on their own, and the radioactive contamination will spread across the earth in a few months by atmospheric currents. True, the people of the country that detonated the bomb will die first.

Presumably, no country yet has such ammunition in service, but some claim that Russian scientists are developing a cobalt bomb. It is not possible to establish what really is; all statements are based on rumors that are refuted by the Kremlin.

It becomes very scary to think that humanity so little values its existence on planet Earth. In the race for superiority in weapons, people forget that no one can survive after using such weapons.

Video

The cobalt bomb is a theoretical modification of a weapon of mass destruction that leads to high degrees of radioactive contamination and contamination of the area with a relatively small explosion force. A cobalt bomb refers to one in which the damaging factor acts. At the same time, due to the relative weakness of the explosion, almost all infrastructure, buildings, structures and buildings remain undamaged.

A cobalt bomb is a nuclear weapon whose shell is made not of uranium-238, but of cobalt-59. During detonation, the shell is irradiated with a powerful neutron flux, which leads to the transmutation of cobalt-59 into the cobalt-60 isotope. It is a little over 5 years. As a result of the beta decay of this nuclide, nickel-60 is formed in the active state, which after some time passes into the ground state.

The activity of one gram of cobalt-60 is estimated to be 1130 Ci. To completely contaminate the entire surface of the planet with radiation at the level of grams/square kilometer of cobalt-60, about 510 tons are needed. In general, the explosion of such a bomb could contaminate the area for almost 50 years. Such long periods leave little chance for the population to survive the infection even in bunkers.

It is believed that the cobalt bomb was never created, so it is not in service with any country. A small amount of this element was used in one British test for radiochemical tracers.

There are no big obstacles to creating such ammunition, but the high degree of contamination of the area and its duration do not allow it to be safely tested. Such ammunition has never been manufactured or tested due to the enormous danger it poses to the attackers themselves.

The most terrible way to use a cobalt bomb is to explode it at a high altitude, somewhat away from enemy territory, depending on weather conditions. In this case, the goal is for radioactive fallout to pass over enemy territory, which theoretically could destroy all life on it.

The very idea of this bomb was invented by physicist Leo Szilard, who suggested that an arsenal of cobalt bombs could destroy the entire population of the planet. Cobalt was chosen due to the fact that when activated by neutrons it gives a very strong and long-lasting radioactive contamination. It is possible to use other elements that form isotopes with even longer half-lives when creating such ammunition, but their activity is clearly insufficient. There are also short-lived isotopes compared to cobalt-60, such as sodium-24, zinc-65 and gold-198, but due to their fairly rapid decay, part of the population can survive the contamination of the area in bunkers.

Academician Sakharov, who created the first one, also took part in the theoretical development of the thorium-cobalt bomb and called it “a stinking toadstool.” Even the creation of a hydrogen bomb and its testing did not evoke such “flattering” epithets from the scientist. A cobalt bomb can be considered both a neutron and a radiological bomb, a so-called “dirty” weapon.

Shortly before the creation of the first atomic bomb, another idea appeared related to the use of radioactive materials. At the end of the 30s of the last century, when O. Gann and F. Strassmann had just discovered the phenomenon of nuclear fission, even scientists doubted the possibility of artificially starting a chain reaction of fission of uranium nuclei. As a result, the type of weapons that would soon be called nuclear was also in question. But even then, various projects for the use of radioactive materials, primarily military ones, began to appear. One of them was proposed by the aspiring writer R. Heinlein. In his 1940 story “No Good Solution,” the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition were never able to master the chain reaction of fission of uranium nuclei, and they had to drop conventional bombs filled with dust of radioactive metals on Berlin. Having received their share of radiation, the Nazis surrendered. Five years later, Germany actually signed capitulation, but no one dropped any dust bombs on its capitals. However, the unsuccessful “forecast” did not bury the idea itself. On the contrary, research will subsequently be conducted on the topic of such weapons. Already in the early 50s, the type of weapon that scattered radioactive dust over the attacked territory would be called radiological weapons. But the term “dirty bomb” will become more common.

The main difference between radiological weapons and nuclear weapons is that the latter has five damaging factors at once, while a dirty bomb causes damage only through radiation contamination. Thus, the most dangerous period of infection after a nuclear explosion can be waited out in a shelter, and after a few years, the territories affected by it can begin to be reused (for example, Hiroshima and Nagasaki began to be restored by the end of the forties). In turn, the radiological munition ensures long-term contamination of the area under attack. This can be considered both an advantage and disadvantage of dirty bombs.

At first, projects for a hypothetical dirty bomb were a direct borrowing from Heinlein - a container with a radioactive substance and an explosive charge that was supposed to scatter the isotope over the attacked area. Already in 1952, former participant in the Manhattan Project L. Sillard proposed a fundamentally new concept of radiological weapons. In his project, plates of the most common natural cobalt with an atomic weight of 60 units were attached to a conventional hydrogen bomb. During an explosion, temperature, pressure and neutron flux transform cobalt-60 into the isotope cobalt-59. The latter is not found in nature, but has high radioactivity. Thanks to the power of a hydrogen bomb, radioactive cobalt-59 is dispersed over a large area. The half-life of cobalt-59 is more than five years, after which it passes into the excited state of nickel-60, and then into the ground state. There is a popular misconception about the cobalt bomb: it is sometimes considered a high-yield nuclear or thermonuclear weapon. However, this is not so: the main destructive element of such weapons is still the scattered cobalt isotope. A nuclear or thermonuclear warhead is used exclusively to convert cobalt from its natural state to a radioactive state. Soon the term “Doomsday Machine” appeared for such devices. It became clear that a sufficient number of cobalt bombs could be guaranteed to destroy at least a large part of the Earth's population and the biosphere. In 1964, this super-cruelty of radiological weapons was played out in the feature film “Dr. Strangelove, or how I stopped being afraid and fell in love with the bomb” (directed by S. Kubrick). The same Dr. Strangelove from the title of the movie, having learned that the Soviet automatic system, after the fall of an American bomb on the territory of the USSR, activated the “Doomsday Machine,” quickly calculated that the revival of humanity could begin only in more than ninety years. And then, with a number of appropriate measures, and the time for their implementation was rapidly decreasing.

Still from the film “Doctor Strangelove, or How I Stopped Being Afraid and Loved the Bomb” (directed by S. Kubrick)

The above-mentioned film is rightfully considered one of the best anti-militarist films. And, interestingly, the cannibalistic cobalt bomb was not proposed by Sillard out of a desire to quickly destroy a potential enemy. The physicist simply wanted to demonstrate the futility of further race in the field of weapons of mass destruction. In the mid-50s, American nuclear scientists calculated the technological and economic parts of the cobalt bomb project and were horrified. The creation of a Doomsday Machine capable of destroying all life on the planet was affordable for any country with nuclear technology. To avoid problems in the very near future, the Pentagon banned further work on the topic of dirty bombs using cobalt-60. This decision is quite understandable; in one of the radio broadcasts of the fifties with the participation of Sillard, a wonderful phrase was heard: “it is easier to destroy all of humanity with a cobalt bomb than a specific part of it.”

But stopping work on cobalt munitions did not guarantee that dirty bombs would not be used. The superpowers, and then the countries with nuclear technology, quickly came to the conclusion that such weapons made no sense. A nuclear or thermonuclear bomb can instantly destroy the enemy in the right place. It will be possible to occupy this territory in a matter of days after the explosion, when the radiation level drops to an acceptable level. But radiological weapons cannot work as quickly as nuclear weapons and “liberate” the area from their consequences just as quickly. Dirty bomb as a deterrent? This application is hampered by exactly the same problems. It turns out that large developed countries do not need dirty ammunition. Thanks to all this, radiological weapons were never officially adopted, never tested, and, moreover, never used in practice.

At the same time, dirty bombs have several alarming features. Firstly, it is relatively affordable. In order to have an atomic or hydrogen bomb, you need appropriate enterprises, the proper level of science and many other important nuances. But for the production of radiological warheads, a certain amount of any radioactive substance is enough, and there are, as they say, a lot of explosives in the world. Radioactive material can be taken from anywhere - even uranium ore or medical supplies, although in the latter case you will have to “pick apart” quite a large number of containers intended for oncology departments of hospitals. After all, smoke detectors often use suitable isotopes, such as americium-241. However, such devices are a completely unacceptable “source” - modern models contain such a tiny amount of isotopes that for critical mass it will be necessary to dismantle several million devices. Perhaps there is no such villainous dictator of a third world country on our planet who would approve a project to create a dirty bomb from fire-fighting equipment.

It is no coincidence that third world countries are mentioned in the context of radiological weapons. The fact is that dirty bombs are sometimes called “beggars’ nuclear weapons.” In particular, this is why notes regularly appear in the media around the world that talk about the discovery of blueprints or even parts of a finished dirty bomb in various parts of the world. I would really like all these messages to turn out to be banal newspaper ducks. There is ample reason to want just such an outcome. According to military analysts, if there had been a terrorist attack in New York on September 11, 2001, using not airplanes, but a dirty bomb... The number of victims would not have been in the thousands, but in the millions. In addition, a large part of the city would have to be turned into an exclusion zone similar to Chernobyl. In other words, radiological weapons can be considered a very attractive thing for terrorist organizations. Their “actions” are most often aimed at civilians, and dirty bombs could turn out to be a powerful “argument” in unreliable hands.

The accident at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant can be considered the clearest example of what can happen if radiological weapons are used. It should be noted that the actual impact of a real radiological bomb will be much weaker, if only because an explosion occurred in the nuclear power plant reactor with a power of at least several hundred kilograms of TNT (various unofficial sources even mention the equivalent of 100 tons), and after the explosion itself in In the destroyed structure, favorable conditions remained for the evaporation of radioactive material. It is unlikely that anyone would make a dirty bomb with five hundred kilograms of trinitrotoluene. If only because it is impractical.

Despite the lack of commercially produced designs, dirty bombs can be considered very dangerous, although mostly fictional weapons. And yet there remains some possibility that a dirty bomb could end up in the hands of dangerous individuals with less than good intentions. Intelligence agencies around the world are obliged to do everything to prevent radiological weapons from becoming hypothetical and becoming fully existent - the cost of this will be too high.

The main calculation for a nuclear strike is made on the immediate effect that occurs directly during the explosion - a destructive shock wave, penetrating radiation, light radiation. At the same time, another very unpleasant side effect appears - radioactive contamination of the area. History knows a case when the military intended to rely on the last damaging factor, using a “dirty bomb” capable of making any territory uninhabitable for a very, very long time.

However, the first person to have such an idea was not a maniac scientist, not a dictator of a small third world country, or even a general from the Pentagon. In 1940, the aspiring but already promising American science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wrote the story “Bad Solution.” In Europe, the flywheel of World War II was already swinging, and the world, shuddering with anticipation of the coming war, was hastily arming itself; Heinlein was interested in physics, and therefore his creative thought flowed along an obvious channel: what new methods of murder could result from the latest achievements of science, in particular the fission of the uranium nucleus, discovered in 1939 by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann.

Interesting fact: in his story, Robert Heinlein foresaw its creation three years before the Manhattan Project. But if the result of research carried out within the framework of the real Manhattan Project were atomic bombs dropped on Japanese cities, then the scientists involved in the fictional Special Defense Project No. 347 were unable to solve the problem of controlling the nuclear reaction - and therefore decided to take a different path and take advantage of the deadly properties of radioactivity of unstable isotopes. In the alternative universe of the story, in order to force Germany to surrender, the United States of America dropped several dozen compact bombs with radioactive dust on Berlin in 1945 - the city was not damaged, but was completely depopulated - and then set a course for the world domination of democratic values, supported by “dirty bombs."

“Fantastic,” the reader will say. Alas, what Robert Heinlein wrote about was quite possible during the Second World War, and even more so can become a reality today. Especially after the media covered the topic of what is actually known about the Status-6 project

Radioactive dust

Radiological weapons, as “dirty bombs” are also called, do not need to be actual bombs. In Heinlein’s story, for example, the Russians (who created this almost simultaneously with the Americans) scattered radioactive dust over American cities directly from airplanes, like insecticide on the fields (by the way, another apt prediction of the author: long before the start of the Cold War, he foresaw that it was the USSR that would become main rival of the United States in the field of superweapons). Even when made in the form of a bomb, such a weapon does not cause significant material destruction - a small explosive charge is used to disperse radioactive dust into the air.

During a nuclear explosion, a significant amount of various unstable isotopes is formed, in addition, contamination occurs with induced radioactivity resulting from neutron ionizing radiation of soil and objects. However, the level of radiation after a nuclear explosion drops relatively quickly, so the most dangerous period can be waited out in a bomb shelter, and the contaminated area after a few years becomes suitable for use for economic purposes and for living. For example, Hiroshima, which suffered from a uranium bomb, and Nagasaki, where a plutonium bomb was detonated, began to be rebuilt four years after the explosions.

It happens quite differently when a fairly powerful “dirty bomb” explodes, specifically designed to maximize contamination of the territory and turn it into something like the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Different radioactive isotopes have different half-lives, ranging from microseconds to billions of years. The most unpleasant of them are those whose half-life occurs over the course of years - a time significant relative to the duration of human life: you cannot sit them out in a bomb shelter; if they are sufficiently contaminated, the area remains radioactively dangerous for several decades, and generations will have time to change several times before they are destroyed. in the city (or in another territory) it will be possible to work and live again.

The most dangerous isotopes for humans include strontium-90 and strontium-89, cesium-137, zinc-64, tantalum-181. It should be kept in mind that different isotopes have different effects on the body. For example, iodine-131, although it has a relatively short half-life of eight days, poses a serious danger because it accumulates quickly in the thyroid gland. Radioactive strontium accumulates in bones, cesium in muscle tissue, and carbon is distributed throughout the body.

The units of measurement of radiation absorbed by the body are the sievert (Sv) and the outdated, but still found in publications, the rem (“biological equivalent of an x-ray,” 1 rem = 0.01 Sv). The normal dose of radioactive radiation received by humans from natural sources throughout the year is 0.0035−0.005 Sv. Irradiation of 1 Sv is the lower threshold for the development of radiation sickness: the immune system is significantly weakened, health deteriorates, bleeding, hair loss and the occurrence of male infertility are possible. At a dose of 3-5 Sv, without serious medical care, half of the victims die within 1-2 months; survivors have a high probability of developing cancer. At 6-10 Sv, a person’s bone marrow almost completely dies; without a complete transplant there is no chance of survival; death occurs within 1-4 weeks. If a person received more than 10 Sv, it is impossible to save him.

In addition to somatic (that is, arising directly in an irradiated person) consequences, there are also genetic ones - manifested in his offspring. It should be borne in mind that even with a relatively small dose of radioactive radiation of 0.1 Sv, the probability of gene mutations doubles.

In 1952, Leo Szilard, a scientist who had discovered the nuclear chain reaction two decades earlier and a former participant in the Manhattan Project, outlined the following idea: if a hydrogen bomb was surrounded by a shell of ordinary cobalt-59, then upon explosion it would turn into an unstable isotope cobalt-60 with a half-life of about 5.5 years, it is a powerful source of gamma radiation. There is a common misconception (including in fiction) that a cobalt bomb is an extremely powerful explosive device, a “supernuclear bomb,” but this is not so. The main damaging factor of a cobalt bomb is not a nuclear explosion at all, but the maximum possible radiation contamination of the area, so this bomb is the most “dirty”, if you like, “super-dirty”. To Szilard's credit, it should be said that he made his proposal not from militaristic motives and not in a state of naive detachment from reality, often characteristic of the priests of science, but solely in order to demonstrate the absurdity, the suicidal senselessness of the race for superweapons. But subsequently, other scientists carried out precise calculations and came to the conclusion that if the size of the cobalt bomb is sufficient (and quite realistic for production), it (or a set of similar bombs) will destroy all life on Earth. And how can we know now whether they made these calculations out of their own curiosity or after a call from the Pentagon: “calculate the feasibility, effectiveness, cost, report by evening”?..

No one has ever before proposed a feasible weapon option (no matter how massive its destructive effect) capable of sterilizing the entire planet. In the 1950s, RAND research center analyst Herman Kahn introduced the concept of “Doomsday Machines.” A state with such a device is capable of dictating its will to the whole world, but it will be the will of a suicide bomber clutching a grenade without a pin in his hand.

As Harrison Brown said in a radio discussion with Leo Szilard, “It is much easier to destroy all of humanity with such a bomb than to destroy a specific part of it.”

This is probably why, to this day, the cobalt bomb - as far as we know - remains a “hypothetical” weapon, like “dirty bombs” in general. But the threat of their use is high, higher than the threat of nuclear war. Especially in these stressful times. By the way, ironically, Szilard, like Heinlein who predicted the “dirty bomb,” was also known as a science fiction writer, the author of a number of science fiction stories, including those translated into Russian back in Soviet times.

So, the main destructive element of such weapons is still the scattered cobalt isotope. A nuclear or thermonuclear warhead is used exclusively to convert cobalt from its natural state to a radioactive state. Soon the term “Doomsday Machine” appeared for such devices. It became clear that a sufficient number of cobalt bombs could be guaranteed to destroy at least a large part of the Earth's population and the biosphere. In 1964, this super-cruelty of radiological weapons was played out in the feature film “Dr. Strangelove, or how I stopped being afraid and fell in love with the bomb” (directed by S. Kubrick). The same Dr. Strangelove from the title of the movie, having learned that the Soviet automatic system, after the fall of an American bomb on the territory of the USSR, activated the “Doomsday Machine,” quickly calculated that the revival of humanity could begin only in more than ninety years. And then, with a number of appropriate measures, and the time for their implementation was rapidly decreasing.

Who benefits from this?

As far as is known, no state officially has radiological weapons. It is unprofitable for traditional wars: a “dirty bomb” does not allow you to destroy the enemy instantly, like other types of weapons, its effect is extended over time, in addition, for many years it makes the territory unsuitable for capture and use - and even for sending troops. As a deterrent weapon, a dirty bomb is also not the best option when equipped with nuclear warheads.

However, while the “dirty bomb” is not suitable for either “hot” or “cold” armed confrontation, it is quite suitable for groups waging war by unconventional methods, primarily terrorist ones. Radiological weapons make it possible to inflict maximum damage on civilians - therefore, they are an ideal means of deterrence. On September 11, 2001, during the largest terrorist attack under the ruins of the Twin Towers, almost 3,000 people died. If a medium-power “dirty bomb” had exploded in the same place, the number of victims would have gone into the millions. The National Geographic Channel produced a 40-minute video showing the consequences of a hypothetical explosion of a small American-strontium “dirty bomb” in the middle of an American town - it clearly simulated the consequences of such an explosion.

Another dubious advantage of this type of weapon is its availability. In one of the publications on this topic, the “dirty bomb” was incorrectly, but very aptly called “an atomic bomb for the poor.” Only eight countries in the world have nuclear weapons. In order to make a real atomic bomb, you need resources that only developed countries have: research laboratories, high-tech production, and finally, weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, which cannot be obtained so easily. A “dirty” bomb can be made literally “on the knee”. Radioactive isotopes are now used very widely: in industry and energy, in medicine, in science, and even in everyday life (for example, smoke detectors are often made based on americium-241), so if you want to obtain enough radioactive substances to make a bomb, it is not a problem. It is no coincidence that during US military operations in the Middle East and in the camps of Chechen militants, as the press writes, drawings of “dirty bombs” were found more than once (however, the latter could be a “duck”).

There is another unpleasant scenario, similar in effect to the use of radiological weapons: a terrorist attack with an ordinary explosion at a nuclear power plant.

Today, when the danger of terrorist attacks is high, people need to know what is happening and how to behave in the event of explosions, including explosions of “dirty bombs”. Apparently, here it is worth directing readers to the National Geographic film, which is called “Dirty Bomb”. And although the film demonstrates the actions of the American civil defense system, the Russian viewer can also glean a lot of useful information from it.

The earth is full of rumors

Despite the fact that “dirty bombs” were never produced or used in actual combat, journalistic “canards” related to this topic regularly appeared in the press, causing mixed reactions from both the public and intelligence agencies. For example, from 1955 to 1963 the British tested atomic charges in Maralinga (South Australia). As part of this program, Operation Antler was carried out, the purpose of which was to test thermonuclear weapons. The program included three tests with charges of different powers (0.93, 5.67 and 26.6 kilotons), and in the first case (code name - Tadje, September 14, 1957) radiochemical tags made of ordinary cobalt (Co-59) were located at the test site ), which under the influence of neutrons turns into cobalt-60. By measuring the intensity of gamma radiation from the tags after testing, one can fairly accurately judge the intensity of the neutron flux during an explosion. The word "cobalt" was leaked to the press, leading to rumors that Britain had not only built a dirty cobalt bomb, but was testing it. The rumors were not confirmed, but the “duck” seriously damaged Britain’s international image - to the point that a royal commission went to Maralinga to check what British nuclear scientists were actually doing in Australia.

Dirty bomb at home

So how many smoke detectors need to be picked apart so that the americium extracted in this way is enough to create a “dirty bomb” at home.

So, a modern HIS-07 smoke detector contains approximately 0.25 µg of americium-241 (0.9 µCi). The ancient Soviet RID-1 smoke detector contains two sources of 0.57 mCi of plutonium-239, which corresponds to approximately 8 mg (total 16 mg per sensor). The relatively new Soviet smoke detector RID-6M contains two sources of 5.7 µCi of plutonium-239, approximately 80 µg each (a total of 160 µg per sensor - not bad!).

The critical mass of a sphere of americium-241 under normal conditions without the use of a neutron reflector is estimated at 60 kg. The critical mass of a plutonium-239 sphere under normal conditions without the use of a neutron reflector is 11 kg. A neutron reflector and a well-thought-out implosion circuit could make it possible to create a bomb with only 0.2 of these masses. But even in this case, we will need plutonium from 140,000 RID-1 sensors, 14 million RID-6M sensors or 48 billion HIS-07.

As for the “dirty bomb,” we can say that the level of contamination of the earth’s surface will be dangerous at about 1 mCi/m2. This means that per 1 m² you need one RID-1, 100 RID-6M and 1000 HIS-07. But one RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator, used, for example, at remote lighthouses and weather stations) Beta-M is enough for 35,000 m². And a pollution level of about 1 µCi/m2 will certainly be harmful and beyond any standards. Accordingly, RID-1 can thoroughly dirty 1000 m², RID-6M - 10 m², and HIS-07 - 1 m². Well, RTG Beta-M will pollute no less than 35 km².

These are, of course, conditional figures. Different isotopes have different dangers. What exactly is considered dangerous and what is harmful is a highly controversial issue. Plus, small amounts are sprayed unevenly, so the actual areas of contamination will be much smaller.