Mushroom cloud
Cloud of debris and smoke from a large explosion
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Key Takeaways
- A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and usually condensed water vapour resulting from a large explosion.
- They can be caused by powerful conventional weapons, including large thermobaric weapons.
- Mushroom clouds result from the sudden formation of a large volume of lower-density gases at any altitude, causing a Rayleigh–Taylor instability.
- The mass of gas plus entrained moist air eventually reaches an altitude where it is no longer of lower density than the surrounding air; at this point, it disperses, drifting back down, which results in fallout following a nuclear blast.
- Early accounts and origins of term Although the term appears to have been coined in the early 1950s, mushroom clouds generated by explosions were being described centuries before the Atomic Age.
A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and usually condensed water vapour resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with a nuclear explosion, but any sufficiently energetic detonation or deflagration will produce a similar effect. They can be caused by powerful conventional weapons, including large thermobaric weapons. Some volcanic eruptions and impact events can produce natural mushroom clouds.
Mushroom clouds result from the sudden formation of a large volume of lower-density gases at any altitude, causing a Rayleigh–Taylor instability. The buoyant mass of gas rises rapidly, resulting in turbulent vortices curling downward around its edges, forming a temporary vortex ring that draws up a central column, possibly with smoke, debris, condensed water vapor, or a combination of these, to form the "mushroom stem". The mass of gas plus entrained moist air eventually reaches an altitude where it is no longer of lower density than the surrounding air; at this point, it disperses, drifting back down, which results in fallout following a nuclear blast. The stabilization altitude depends strongly on the profiles of the temperature, dew point, and wind shear in the air at and above the starting altitude.
Early accounts and origins of term
Although the term appears to have been coined in the early 1950s, mushroom clouds generated by explosions were being described centuries before the Atomic Age. A contemporary aquatint by an unknown artist of the 1782 Franco-Spanish attack on Gibraltar shows one of the attacking force's floating batteries exploding with a mushroom cloud after the British defenders set it ablaze by firing heated shot.
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