Aurorae were seen widely after Starfish Prime, a 1962 nuclear test in space. Science History Images/Alamy Stock Photo By Richard StoneDec. 26, 2019 , 11:45 AM The U.S. military thought it had cleared the decks when, on 9 July 1962, it heaved a 1.4-megaton nuclear bomb some 400 kilometers into […]
Starfish Prime
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An image from Google Maps, uncovered by one eagle-eyed Reddit user, shows an aerial view of an island surrounded by sea and greenery. In the midst of it all, stands one white rectangular building, with nothing else in sight. The location of this image is Johnston’s Island, which is situated […]
Key point: The space race is back on, In 1962, U.S. president John F. Kennedy was in a bind. He was eager to negotiate a nuclear test ban with the Soviet Union. But the Soviets had recently shattered a three-year test moratorium and now Kennedy was under pressure to respond […]
The threat of new exo-atmospheric nuclear explosions has never been higher This op-ed originally appeared in the Dec. 17, 2018 issue of SpaceNews magazine. In 1962, a high-altitude nuclear explosion called Starfish Prime increased the charged-particle radiation in near-Earth space to values easily 10 million times the “natural” radiation level. […]