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North Korea Air Sample Shows Radiation
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Oct 13, 2006 03:53 PM
from the what-went-boom? dept.
from the what-went-boom? dept.
Apocalypse111 writes, "According to CNN.com, air samples taken over North Korea have not yet shown any radiation from the event on Monday that North Korea claims was a nuclear test. This is not definitive proof that the event was non-nuclear, as it may either have been so small and deep that it did not let any radioactive debris escape, or perhaps the North Koreans sealed the site." Furthering speculation over whether North Korea has actually exploded a nuclear device, vk38 writes to point out a (free) article in today's Wall Street Journal claiming that the blast could have been
set off by exploding fertilizer (ammonium nitrate). The article points to the
Texas City disaster of 1947, in which 7,700 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded in the hold of a ship with the estimated power of 2 to 4 kilotons of TNT.
Update: 10/14 08:03 GMT by Z : The story at CNN has been updated: "A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows 'radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test,' according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official."
Update: 10/14 08:03 GMT by Z : The story at CNN has been updated: "A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows 'radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test,' according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official."
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North Korea Says It Has Conducted Nuclear Test 1623 comments
ScentCone writes "North Korea says that it has conducted its first nuclear weapons test and 'brought happiness to its people.' Japan and China earlier issued an unusual joint statement saying that such a test would be 'unacceptable.' As of 11:10PM EST, the USGS says that it has not detected any unusual seismic activity on the Korean peninsula in the last 48 hours." From the article: "The North said last week it would conduct a test, sparking regional concern and frantic diplomatic efforts aimed at dissuading Pyongyang from such a move. North Korea has long claimed to have nuclear weapons, but had never before performed a known test to prove its arsenal. The nuclear test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) in Hwaderi near Kilju city, Yonhap reported, citing defense officials." Update: 10/09 05:50 GMT by J : The U.S. Geological Survey reports a 4.2 magnitude quake; South Korean news is reporting a 3.58 magnitude event; the White House apparently confirms a nuclear test.
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Oh my gawd (Score:3, Funny)
Choreography! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Choreography! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe all the North Koreans jumped up and down at the same time.
Oddly enough, external microphones on the jet picked up something that sounded like singing... "I'm so wronery..."Parent
Re:Choreography! (Score:5, Funny)
The Dear Leader watches everything. He is all-knowing. The Dear Leader was born on Mt. Paektu the Sacred Mountain. His birth was attended simultaneously by a double rainbow and a radiant star in the heavens. Surely that's a sign of Godhood. He is the light of our lives. We are blessed to have his benevolent gaze shining over our great nation.
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Hardware? (Score:5, Funny)
Halifax Explosion! (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion [wikipedia.org] Atleast 200kTons there...
Re:Halifax Explosion! (Score:5, Informative)
Instead of very large accidental explosions, it might be a bit more topical to talk about known instances in the past where nations have deliberately simulated nuclear bombs with conventional explosives, like the 4 kt Minor Scale experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Scale_(explosi
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Re:Halifax Explosion! (Score:4, Informative)
Now, that 500 tons of (real) TNT was a 0.5 kt blast, about what the North Korea blast is estimated at from the shockwave. Could easily have been a few container loads of TNT. It's a pretty damp squib as far as even first-attempt nukes go.
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Re:Halifax Explosion! (Score:5, Informative)
There was a larger deliberate explosion in Canada: the explosion of Ripple Rock [vancouveri...abound.com], off Vancouver Island in 1958. It used 1,375 tons of explosives.
I have seen the Ripple Rock explosion characterized as the "largest man-made non-nuclear explosion ever" or the "largest peacetime man-made non-nuclear explosion ever."
You can watch the CBC footage here [archives.cbc.ca].
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Assplosives Detonation Velocities table (Score:3, Interesting)
If North Korea says so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we justified sanctioning and otherwise punishing it, even if it lied?
This is more than an abstract question (like the famous "if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there...").
Saddam's Hussein downfall was (at least partially) brought about by his insinuating that he still has WMDs privately — to keep neighbors in fear, soldiers brave, and citizens proud, while claiming loudly, that he got rid of them all (which turned out to be true, after all)...
Re:If North Korea says so... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, consider this: if someone comes to you and says "hey, I just crapped in your locker" without laughing, what do you do? either you punch him in the face rightaway for having crapped in your locker, or you don't believe him, look inside your locker, discover no turd, then turn around and punch him in the face for being a stupid asshole. Either way, you punch him in the face.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why, I bomb the locker for a few weeks and then send in 150,000 troops. What else could I possible DO in a situation like this???
correction (Score:5, Funny)
Fixed it.
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Re:If North Korea says so... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:If North Korea says so... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:If North Korea says so... (Score:4, Insightful)
Better to avoid analogies altogether in this case, and talk about rogue nations developing nuclear weapons and selling missile technology to other rogue nations, while holding cities full of people hostage using the credible threat of devastating and unavoidable chemical weapons attacks.
Talk about the actual facts of the matter, and suddenly the whole idea of punching becomes both eminently desireable and eminently unworkable.
What now?
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Re:If North Korea says so... (Score:5, Insightful)
The present-day insurgents weren't in Iraq until after we removed Saddam from power. He ran a run-of-the-mill dictatorship that used his religion (and that of most of his country) as a tool to control people, but he was no religious fanatic. He disliked the Taliban and the Bin Laden extremists almost as much as the U.S. does.
Saddam's Iraq was a cakewalk. We "accomplished" that mission quickly, efficiently, and with minimal casualties on our side. Then, we started screwing almost everything up, and haven't stopped yet. We needed to create a stabler, more secure country faster, before zealots and extremists had time to enter the country and set up shop. Probably having more troops from a wider variety of allies would have helped tremendously, but that would have required us to earn more allies through discourse and compromise, something this administration is not able to do.
Had we not entered Iraq, Saddam would have continued to do an adequate job of suppressing religious fanatics, and Iraq would not have become another Taliban country. (He would have continued suppressing his own people, too; he was still a dictator, murderer, and thug. I'm not denying that. But there are plenty of other murderous dictators in power around the world, some of which are our allies.) Overall, we've probably left the country in worse shape than if we'd just left it alone.
We should have sent many, many more troops to Afghanistan (where we had internation support and justification for our invasion) to avoid the problems that country is having - resurgent Taliban because we didn't kill them all back then when they were in the open, and the country falling back into its longtime role as the world's opium supplier (something the Taliban had tried to suppress, but now profits from).
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Re:If North Korea says so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush claimed that Saddam had an active program and was continuing to stockpile. This is false, and continues to be false.
The only WMD that have been found are the ones that nobody on earth doubted he had. That they were badly accounted for is also not in doubt, as it was all part of Saddam's suicidally stupid bluff. It was not a "stockpile" if it was not maintained, and hence claiming that he had WMD is incorrect if you accept that an impotent WMD is not a WMD.
No relevent devices have been found to this day.
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Re:If North Korea says so... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you think petty namecalling is equivalent to hundreds of thousands dead. I mean the CIA even tried to kill chavez in a coup, if anything hes remarkably polite considering that. Saddam tried to kill bush's dad and look how he reacted.
NK != IRAN != VENEZUELA
Though that doesnt stop the administration from making you think otherwise.
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Sanctions? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Should I be arrested for calling you every night and threaten to shoot you and your children, even if I don't actually own a gun?
The fact that North Korea is saying they have nukes is threat enough to warrant attention.
Especially since (Score:5, Insightful)
To run with your analogy this is like someone holding a gun to their child's head and demanding you give them money to not shoot their kid. Regardless of if it's a cap gun, the fact that they'd stoop to that level of blackmail means that they need to be stopped.
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Re:Sanctions? (Score:4, Insightful)
The are already starving, lack electricity in 95% of the country, are almost completely uneducated, and make most starving African nations look rich in comparison.
They quite literally have nothing to lose, which is very sad.
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Isn't this like a fairy tale? (Score:5, Funny)
No you don't
Boom!
That wasn't a nuke!
Boom!
Sorry, just don't believe you!
Boom!
No no.. never. That was just gas.
errrr.
Oh.. you used all your material and you are out now?
(reminds me of puss and boots with the mouse).
It doesn't matter (Score:3, Insightful)
With all the information that is public, it *is* trivial to create a bomb. Access to plutonium, which he has, is the hard part.
I hate to introduce politics, but it has to be said, Saddam maybe, could have, possibly, been working on something, if you look at the intelligence "just so." North Korea, has been openly saying they are working on these bombs. North Korea sells arms to our enemies. I blame Bush on all counts. The guy is all about acquiring power, but without the wisdom or honor to use it well.
I am remeinded if Bill Maher, Usually you have an administration that is corrupt or one that is inept. The Bush administration is both.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why Kim Jong Il is still in power and Saddam isn't.
Bullies don't pick on those who could seriously fight back.
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Implosion devices are not trivial, a dud I bet (Score:4, Insightful)
And, because in the modern age there are thousands of seismic sites and many radiological sites that can detect the seismic and radioactive signature of a nuclear explosion, a nuclear test is also the announcement that you have succeeded in your nuclear ambitions. For a recent example of how a nuclear test is both final exam and public announcement, see Pakistan.
So the fact that a successfull nuclear test would be quite apparent (and as we are seeing the absence of a nuclear test as well), and that NK called China to tell them so they would be sure China was watching closely, tells me that this was probably a real nuclear test. A test that, it would appear, failed. If memory serves, they told China to expect a 2KT explosion, with the actual measurement at about 0.5KT?
Sounds to me like they had at best a partial detonation of the nuclear material, but didn't have the timing of the high explosives good enough to pack all the plutonium into a small enough ball for it all to react before the reaction force blew it apart.
Saddam could bluff about having chemical weapons. Kim can bluff about developing nukes, but it really doesn't make sense to try to bluff a nuclear test. And of course we know he desperately wants them. So I'm going with the theory that this was a real nuclear test, just a failed one, and North Korea doesn't have a working nuke yet, but they are very close. The data from just this test may be enough for them to fix it.
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hm, (Score:3, Interesting)
One can easily see from the increase in prestige and offers that Iran has been given for just saying that they want nuclear power that it gives your country an "edge"... I think it has backfired a bit - but we'll have to wait and see. Either way it's understandable why he would want to make it look like he has them. If Kim was thinking about the situation rationally then he would also know why China wouldn't want to put too many conditions on North Korea - which is to say that what China really fear is thousands of immigrants flooding in, after all, the nukes North Korea has will never rival China; and they can't even deliver the bombs anyway! (as far as I know they only have the ability to deliver something like that on a boat or train, really)
C'mon (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
yes, it may or not be... (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, get back to the question. If a nuke was buried deep enough and the caverns sealed before the blast, with a very small nuke, would radiation escape to be detected? And wasn't there a lot of talk the other day that the seismograph guys were good enough to tell just from the signature?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that "total" economic sanctions would be effective. This means absolutely nothing in or out--no food, no medicine--nothing. Despite complete self-reliance being Dear Leader's wet dream, the NK regime would collapse.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Chemical explosion, is my bet (Score:5, Informative)
The revised seismic figures were (if I recall right) something like 0.5 kT equivalent. The smallest easy-to-build bombs (those that have supercritical assemblies without hyper-compression of the metal) yield something like 10-30 kT, so this was either a fizzled nuke or a large pile of ANFO (or something like that).
In the last discussion I made a big deal about the Kamioka observatory and how they "should" have been able to see neutrinos from the blast -- but with an 0.5kT blast the number of neutrino interactions is only 1 or 2, so they can't be expected to distinguish a large chemical explosion from a very small fizzled nuclear explosion.
Re:Chemical explosion, is my bet (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Chemical explosion, is my bet (Score:5, Informative)
You should have called in some mining engineers. Your analysis is a bit off.
The speeds involved were close enough -- although the detonation of 500 tons of TNT takes about half a millisecond and given your energy for the neutrons that takes closer to a microsecond -- but either kind of explosion has to couple the energy to the rocks surrounding and propagate out from there as seismic waves for the seismic people to detect it. That coupling is going to be affected by the precise nature of the surrounding rock -- density, water content, etc. Without knowing that, it will be hard to tell the difference even with good seismic signals (or a much more powerful blast).
There were only (as I recall) a few stations that even detected the blast, enough to triangulate it but not enough for really good signal data. Good enough to tell that it was an explosion rather than an earthquake, but not to determine the kind of explosion.
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Re:Chemical explosion, is my bet (Score:5, Informative)
I find it very implausible that it could have "fizzled." It's a damn chain reaction - set it and forget it, as the saying goes.
Then you need to learn a bit more about nuclear physics. Plutonium is a bit trickier to set off as a nuclear weapon do the fact that it can start a reaction before it's compressed down to the intended size. What happens is the chain reaction stops short of the intended yield because the ball of plutonium literally blows itself apart before you get enough generations of neutron reactions to yield enough energy.
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It still makes sense... (Score:4, Informative)
Also, the estimates (which vary according to which country you ask) are less than 1 kt. As far as nukes go, that is very tiny. How much rad would you expect from this? How deep was the explosion? I know that they registered seismic activity, which was how they knew it happened. How accurate can one guage depth using seismographic equipment?
For some perspective, the US 1954 Castle Bravo test was 15 MEGA tons, and it was a mistake, they were only expecting like 1/3rd of that. The "ruskies" detonated 50 Mt, the largest ever, in 1961. There has been over 2,000 nuclear tests by the world nuke powers since they began, most of them from the US.
Team America (Score:3, Funny)
North Korea proves they still arn't "big time". (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I think it proves they DONT have a bomb.... yet. And more likely their real first test will be over Japan/Israel/South Korea/ whereever else, and their second will be during the all out nuclear bombardment where all the countries give them all the nuclear power they need, though they'll have to figure out how to contain it.
North Korea and Iran are both playing dangerous games. They are acting like children at the grown ups tables. Let's hope they mature or get slapped before they become teenagers who get into a massive car accident and "kill" one or more of the adults
Take him at his word (Score:3, Insightful)
Underground Nuclear Explosions (Score:5, Interesting)
As far I understood an article I read some time ago, the gigantic heat of the explosion melts the surronding soil into a glass cave which conceils the radioactive mess.
The problem is only after years of even decades, this glass sealing can (and at some point will) break and set the radioactivity free. Then the radiation levels will boost up... Thats another problem of humanity waiting we create now (our legacy for our kids).. all this sealed nuke-eggs from past underground expiriments loosing integrity at some future point.
According to CNN, radiation has been detected (Score:5, Informative)
From http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/13/nkore
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A preliminary analysis of air samples from North Korea shows "radioactive debris consistent with a North Korea nuclear test," according to a statement from the office of the top U.S. intelligence official.
The statement, from the office of Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, was sent to Capitol Hill but not released publicly. CNN obtained it from a congressional source.
If confirmed, the nuclear weapons test that North Korea claimed it conducted on Monday would be the first of its kind since Pakistan's underground blast in 1998.
Pyongyang's claim has renewed fears of a regional arms race and that North Korea might aid terrorists with nuclear materials or technology.
The national intelligence office statement said the air samples were collected Wednesday, and analysis found debris that would be consistent with a nuclear test "in the vicinity of Punggye" on Monday.
"Additional analysis is ongoing and will be completed in a few days," the statement said.
The South Korean Defense Ministry told CNN that the United States has informed it that radioactivity has been detected.
The report is in contrast to information provided to CNN earlier Friday from two U.S. government officials with access to classified information. Those officials said that an initial air sampling over North Korea showed no indication of radioactive debris.
The White House said it had no confirmation that the North Koreans conducted a nuclear test.
"We've seen the various press reports," said National Security Council spokesman Fred Jones. "We still have no definitive statement on the event. The intelligence community continues to analyze the data."
The U.S. Air Force flew a WC-135 Constant Phoenix atmospheric collection aircraft on Tuesday to collect air samples from the region.
The intelligence community and the military will also continue to collect air samples in the region and use satellite information to try to collect radiological data that would confirm a nuclear test, officials said. But as time goes on, it will be increasingly difficult to achieve confirmation.
Officials emphasized earlier Friday that the data collected are preliminary and provide no conclusive evidence about the North Korean event.
It is possible there was no radiological data. That could be the case if: the North Koreans successfully sealed the site; it was such a small detonation and so deep underground there was no escape of nuclear debris; or the test was actually conventional explosives.
The U.N. Security Council has agreed to vote Saturday on whether to impose sanctions on North Korea over the purported nuclear test, according to John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, Jamie McIntyre and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In Other News (Score:5, Insightful)
So yes, we should know by now, but we don't. This is news.
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Re:In Other News (Score:5, Insightful)
So, nobody's really sure what to believe right now, and eventually it'll just fall to consensus on the data we already have.
The best place to hear about the debate's over at ArmsControlWonk [armscontrolwonk.com]. New radionucliotide data, insider info from some well-placed anonymous sources, and insights into the scientific cultures within dictatorships paints an interesting picture.
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Bush Lies Again (Score:4, Funny)
Just because NKorea is also falsely claiming they're real, doesn't mean that Bush can slander them by agreeing.
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Re:Of course they don't (Score:5, Informative)
US has evidence of radioactivity from North Korea [cnn.com]
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