Weapon that could destroy the atmosphere

Originally posted by Togetic
I remember hearing someone talking on Coast to Coast a few months ago (maybe more) about a weapon that the Russians had tested whose purpose was to blow chunks of Earth's atmosphere off into space. This person, a male, claimed that the US was determined to attempt their own version of such a weapon, and that only on the intervention of this man (who threatened to expose the whole program publicly) did the US stop. Does anyone know about this weapon, and is there any evidence to substantiate his claims?

Coast to Coast is amusing, but I wouldn't take anything from that show to seriously. The ONLY way a large amount of our athmosphere could possibly be ejected into space is if the Earth were to be hit with a VERY large asteriod, but then we would have much bigger problems.

What Is HAARP?
The official HAARP facility is located in Gakuna, Alaska. The site consists of a collection of antennae, arranged in a computer-controlled grid, known as a "phased array." A phased array has the ability to focus radio signals in a precise direction, without the necessity of turning the antennae. Modern radar systems no longer use the revolving dish that we have come to recognize. The new radar antennae, which rely on phased arrays, look more like the flat screen of a drive-in movie, speckled with small umbrella-like antennae in neat rows. The phased array in HAARP is not a radar, but it uses some of the same extremely high frequencies to focus a powerful radio beam to specific locations in the Earth's ionosphere.

from www.mondovista.com...

Originally posted by Hiphar

Coast to Coast is amusing, but I wouldn't take anything from that show to seriously. The ONLY way a large amount of our athmosphere could possibly be ejected into space is if the Earth were to be hit with a VERY large asteriod, but then we would have much bigger problems.

Come now, what are you talking about? Why just this morning there was a [sarcasm]very[/sarcasm] credible, cigarette addled woman who told a fascinating story about how she had come to Roswell while still in her spirit body aboard a flying saucer and ended up inside her earthly body. Then she started complaining about liberals and Noory hit the eject button.

I actually am a member of Coast to Coast's subscriber service, because I think Noory's a good egg and Punnett makes me laugh. No accounting for good taste, I guess.

Years ago I remember reading somewhere that if extremely energetic laser pulses were fired at key points on the sun, IE areas of flare activity, stepping up the energy level just enough in those areas to cause them to flare at the same time, it might be possible to make the sun go nova after a fashion. But I cannot imagine the amount of energy needed to fire significant pulses to pull off that effect. When you are talking about effects on macro scales, such as blowing off chunks of the atmosphere, the release of energy needed to pull such a thing off would be at least as destructive as the effect it created.

In regard to your query regarding weapons that could possibly destroy the atmosphere, my astronomy professor recently mentioned something interesting regarding that very subject. He told the class that when the "Tsar Bomba" was detonated on October 30, 1961, it actually set the atmosphere ablaze. According to him, the oxygen within the atmosphere burned uncontrollably for three days straight, before inexplicably extinguishing.

I found no information to verify his claims, but he does have a doctorate in physics, and is from Eastern Europe somewhere. I took his story with a grain of salt, but I can see no reason why he would fabricate such a story to tell his class. Anyway, he carried on by saying that if the bomb had been any larger (it was planned to be 100 Mt, but was scaled down to 50 Mt to reduce fallout) the combustion of the atmosphere may not have ceased, and all oxygen in the atmosphere could have been burned away, which needless to say would not bode well for us.

So, according to my astronomy professor, a nuclear weapon of sufficient size would be able to effectively destroy the atmosphere and render Earth quite uninhabitable. Reassuring isn’t it.

Originally posted by Wowser
In regard to your query regarding weapons that could possibly destroy the atmosphere, my astronomy professor recently mentioned something interesting regarding that very subject. He told the class that when the "Tsar Bomba" was detonated on October 30, 1961, it actually set the atmosphere ablaze. According to him, the oxygen within the atmosphere burned uncontrollably for three days straight, before inexplicably extinguishing.

I found no information to verify his claims, but he does have a doctorate in physics, and is from Eastern Europe somewhere. I took his story with a grain of salt, but I can see no reason why he would fabricate such a story to tell his class. Anyway, he carried on by saying that if the bomb had been any larger (it was planned to be 100 Mt, but was scaled down to 50 Mt to reduce fallout) the combustion of the atmosphere may not have ceased, and all oxygen in the atmosphere could have been burned away, which needless to say would not bode well for us.

So, according to my astronomy professor, a nuclear weapon of sufficient size would be able to effectively destroy the atmosphere and render Earth quite uninhabitable. Reassuring isn’t it.

Oxygen doesn't burn. It supports combustion. What would the reaction be? O2 + O2 -> 2O2? Not much in the way of energy exchange, eh?

It being your astronomy prof, he might be getting confused with the Teller/Fermi question about the possibility of a Bethe cycle fusion reaction being set up in the atmosphere between the water vapor, CO2 and nitrogen, which at the time they initially thought might be possible. However, further study of the issue showed that even smaller stars like the Sun don't have enough mass or energy output to switch over to Bethe cycle fusion, so it could never happen in Earth's atmosphere.

Hmm... Sounds like a theory that surfaced during the Manhattan Project. The theory was that detonating a nuke would cause a chain reaction burning off the earth's atmosphere.

Originally posted by mbkennel

I believe that the earliest and biggest fusion weapons were nearly capable of ejecting atmosphere out of gravitational binding to the Earth, and this was one fundamental limitation on their size and utility.

With a number of other reasons this led to the more useful strategic doctrines of larger numbers of smaller (though still titanic) nuclear weapons.

The Tzar Bomba hydrogen bomb was the biggest and strongest nuclear device ever concieved. The total strength off the bomb was 57 Megatons and its cloud reached a height off 60 KM... The official boundary where space starts is 100 KM..... Even the most powerfull Nuke in the world couldnt lift a peice off atmossphere away from the gravitational binding.....

So please do your research... because what you said is false....

I've heard of the "burning atmosphere" thing. However, if you think about it chemically it doesn't make much sense.

O2 + 2N2 ---> 2N2O ? Lot's of laughing gas. Highly unlikely.
2O2 + N2 ---> 2NO2 Lot's of nitric acid formed. Still highly unlikely.

There are a few more ways like nitric oxide etc... All of these reactions would not be self-sustaining (even some would be endothermic) and most of them would decompose almost instantly.

Which one do you think would be the most likely in theory?

P.S. I don't consider CO2 or H2O because O2 and N2 won't react chemically with water and there's not enough CO2 in the atmosphere to sustain any reaction.

The weapon that you are talking about is scalar weapon system. aka. electromagnetic weapon system. Russia has perfected this weapon since 1963. There a few countries have the capability that Russia has. One of the country is Israel. Russia has destroyed numerous things that United States has own ranging from nuclear submarine, civilian aircraft, satellites since 1963. This weapon system can manipulate the weather, can destroy any aircraft , missiles thousand of miles away. It can also, protect civilians by providing an invisible shield that is impenetrable to any missiles, bullets, nuclear bombs. Its cheaper than HAARP or SDI(strategic defense initiative). If use for peaceful purposes can heal any disease known to man or provide an energy source for the entire human race. It harness the magnetic energy from our planet. As long your on planet earth you will never run out of energy. However, if use as a weapon it could wipe out the whole planet. Personally, I think this is equivalent to the weapon that destroyed Atlantis.