Nuclear Weapon Myth or ???

Thank you for the DETAILED illustaration. This gives me a very good idea of how long and how far that the dust and particles can fall and affect many different areas of life. Even such as GROUND WATER!

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
Most nuclear weapons currently in use (at least by the 'major players') use plutonium as the fissionable material to actually create the nuclear initiation. Since the energy released (the 'atomic blast') is the result of a runaway nuclear fission reaction, by definition, a fair amount of the plutonium gets turned into 'something else'. Exactly what else isn't important for the purposes of blowing things up, and isn't really controllable in any case. The only things you can say with real certainty are that whatever it is, it will be lower on the periodic table than plutonium, and that it will be intensely radioactive for a period of time.

The rest of the plutonium (along with the bomb casing) gets turned into plasma, more or less, and dissipates in the blast wave. Eventually, the 'evaporated' bomb components, along with dust and bits of the target that get sucked into the updraft, become 'fallout'...radioactive dust and particulate matter that gets carried along by the wind, and settles out over time.