In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

The Gasbuggy Project detonated a nuclear bomb to fracture underground rock formations

Part of Project Plowshare—a program aimed at finding peaceful uses for nuclear devices—the 1967 experiment sought to extract natural gas trapped within shale in underground New Mexico. Gas radioactivity was found to be excessively high for use without expensive processing, and the project was deemed an economic failure.

During the Cold War, a mid-air fire led to a nuclear bomber crash in Greenland that left a piece of a hydrogen bomb missing to this day.

Watch a time-lapse of the installation of the New Safe Confinement structure

The world's largest movable metal structure was built to contain the radioactive material from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which had previously been confined within a structure built to last no more than 30 years. The new structure was slowly rolled along rails over the course of two weeks.

Watch an animated, step-by-step reconstruction of the Chernobyl explosion

This video shows how a 1986 safety test at Chernobyl spiraled out of control—leading to a massive rise in temperatures, an explosion and reactor meltdown that produced the largest civilian nuclear disaster in history.

In 1962, the US detonated a nuclear weapon in space, which produced an electromagnetic pulse that disabled three low Earth orbit satellites and damaged electrical equipment in Hawaii.

A US project proposed a 10-gigaton nuclear bomb capable of global devastation

Planned in the early 1950s by US scientists, Project Sundial aimed to create a 10-gigaton thermonuclear bomb—hundreds of times more powerful than any weapon ever built. Had it been tested, it was expected to cause global environmental catastrophe.

The Tsar Bomba was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested

In 1961, the Soviet Union detonated AN602—known as the Tsar Bomba—the largest nuclear explosion in history. Newly released Russian footage starkly illustrates the unmatched destructive power of this nuclear weapon.

The story of the Manhattan Project's unused demon core

A 3-inch, 14-pound sphere of nuclear reactive plutonium-gallium was set to be delivered to the Pacific Theater in 1945 to become the third atomic bomb dropped over Japan. When Japan surrendered, it was returned to Los Alamos in New Mexico for experiment, where two scientists would die testing whether the core could reach criticality—where it would release intense energy—via the use of a dense reflector. Watch the story here.

In 2012, scientists purposely crashed a Boeing 727 to identify where the safest place to sit is on a plane in order to survive a belly-flop-style impact.

A 1983 NATO war simulation provoked the Soviets to prepare for war

The "SNAFU" podcast, hosted by actor and comedian Ed Helms, explores some of the biggest blunders in history. Season one focuses on the 1983 NATO Able Archer military exercise, a war game that simulated nuclear attacks on the Soviet Union. The USSR mistook the exercise for a genuine threat and prepared its forces for war. Helms recounts this almost catastrophic event in world history with his signature humor.

Deep Impact was the first mission to probe beneath a comet's surface

The NASA mission sent a probe to deliberately crash into comet Tempel 1, producing an explosion equivalent to 4.7 tons of TNT. The payload included a compact disk with more than 625,000 names of people who participated in the "Send Your Name to a Comet!" campaign.

Simulate the impact of an antimatter bomb, which releases energy from the annihilation of matter with antimatter, around the world.

An imbalance in nuclear reactivity factors caused Chernobyl's reactor to explode

The initial explosion resulted from excessive steam pressure that had built up in a runaway manner due to design flaws and violations of safety protocols. Once exposed to atmospheric oxygen, the hot graphite in the control rods underwent a combustion reaction, resulting in a secondary explosion.

View a timeline of the Chernobyl disaster

The 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, caused by a combination of poor safety design and human error, is the worst nuclear accident in history. At least three dozen people died in the direct aftermath, and experts believe thousands suffered premature cancer deaths from radiation exposure.

On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare on Hiroshima, Japan, killing at least 80,000 people instantly.

Over a lifetime, the average American's nuclear power usage creates a hockey puck of nuclear waste

Spent nuclear fuel remains hot and highly radioactive for long periods, requiring submersion in cooling pools before being stored in dry casks and deep underground repositories. The potential recycling of nuclear waste is impeded by security concerns and dangerous reprocessing methods, particularly when obtaining fresh uranium is often easier.

The most advanced 'bunker-buster' bomb can penetrate 200 feet below soil or concrete

The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator is delivered exclusively by the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, which carries only two at a time. Using GPS-guided fins and a steel alloy casing, it burrows 200 feet underground before detonating.

Visualizing the chemistry of nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons have devastating effects, but the science of how they work is atomically small. There are two main types of nuclear reaction: fission and fusion. The fission bomb produces immense energy by splitting an atom, the result of firing a...

Cold War nuclear tests exposed thousands to atomic blasts

After World War II, nuclear powers conducted thousands of weapons tests. This video pairs archival footage with interviews of veterans who witnessed Pacific test explosions, capturing the scale, shock, and human experience of being near a nuclear detonation.

Watch a visualization of the construction of Chernobyl's sarcophagus

Built to contain the remains of Reactor 4 after the nuclear disaster, the "shelter structure" was constructed from about 400,000 cubic meters of concrete—enough to fill 160 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Construction required vehicles and cranes modified with special shielding to protect workers.

The containment apparatus at Chernobyl is the world's largest movable metal structure

Completed in 2016, the "New Safe Confinement" is a €1.5B megastructure—the largest movable structure ever built. It was assembled next to the damaged reactor, then rolled into place along a special track to seal the site for at least 100 years.

Study pinpoints where to hide during a nuclear blast

There’s no surviving the fireball of a nuclear bomb, but beyond that, there are certain spots indoors where you can try avoid the destructive shockwave.

The 'Elephant's Foot' in Chernobyl is part of the largest documented mass of corium

The nuclear disaster produced around 200 tons of nuclear fuel that mixed with the surrounding melted reactor core materials. As of 2025, corium has been naturally formed four other times in history: once during the Three Mile Island accident and three times at the Fukushima Daiichi plant disaster.

The Manhattan Project, the top-secret American program that built the world's first atomic bomb, cost $27B in today's dollars and reshaped global power.

The US once had a plan to nuke the moon

In the 1950s, the US considered detonating a hydrogen bomb on the moon as part of a Cold War show of force. Known as Project A119, the classified plan aimed to create a visible explosion from Earth to signal American dominance in the Space Race.

As of 2024, there are 90,000 tons of nuclear waste stored at 100+ sites in 39 states

Over 315,000 bundles of spent nuclear fuel rods are stored in water pools and over 3,800 dry storage casks in concrete vaults above ground. Corrosion from saltwater spray threatens waste containers of reactors near oceans.

The US once had a plan to nuke the moon

In the 1950s, the US considered detonating a hydrogen bomb on the moon as part of a Cold War show of force. Known as Project A119, the classified plan aimed to create a visible explosion from Earth to signal American dominance in the space race.

The H-bomb is hundreds of times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Unlike the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, which relied on nuclear fission, the hydrogen bomb uses fusion to unleash vastly greater destructive power. Developed by both superpowers in the 1950s, it gave each the ability to destroy entire cities in seconds.

Simulations of atmospheric transport have shown that radioactive material released from potential strikes to US nuclear missile silos would reach everyone in the continental US.

The origin of atmospheric science while testing nuclear weapons during the Cold War

The arms race between the US and the Soviet Union saw both countries stockpiling and detonating hundreds of bombs underground, underwater, and in the atmosphere. To better predict where nuclear fallout would travel after these tests, scientists developed models that would serve as a foundation for those used to explain atmospheric circulation.

The East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment explained

A train transporting a number of potentially dangerous chemicals derailed near the Ohio–Pennsylvania border in early February 2023. The extent of the leak has caused a number of environmental concerns and required a controlled burn to clear most...

Build atomic nuclei to explore their instability and resulting radioactive decay

In this simulation, users can add protons and neutrons to create an atomic nucleus, view its half-life and decay options, and identify patterns in how specific combinations of particles create extremely stable nuclei, from which the nuclear shell model of stability emerged.

In 1975, the Soviet Union fired a space cannon as part of testing a defense system that would prevent anyone from approaching and inspecting Soviet military satellites.

Nuclear weapons in WWII

This 14-minute interactive documentary broaches the subject of the human cost of nuclear warfare. Comparing the number of deaths during World War II with the projected deaths of a nuclear exchange, the video can be paused to delve deeper into individual statistics, historical tidbits, and more data that shows the terrible price humanity would pay.

Nuclear-powered missiles replace chemical combustion with energy from nuclear fission

In these systems, energy is added to an airstream, which passes through a nozzle to generate thrust. Because the amount of energy released per unit mass of nuclear fuel is millions of times larger than that of chemical propellants, nuclear missiles can travel faster and farther with less fuel.

In 2026, researchers successfully transported antimatter in a truck using a portable trap that employed electromagnetic fields to hold 92 antiprotons.

Methods for disposing of nuclear waste include melting it into a liquid to create glass, dumping it into graphite blocks, storing it in lead-lined rooms, and submerging it in deep pools of water.

A breakdown of the Detonation Research Test Facility, which features a 500-foot explosion tube

Located at Texas A&M University, DRTF is the largest explosions lab in the world as of 2026 and features a steel-and-concrete structure that scientists use to initiate and track explosions with split-second precision. Among the facility's goals are studying the large industrial explosions, hypersonic flight, and supernovae.

Experiments suggest nuking a metal-rich asteroid may strengthen it

Scientists exposed meteorite samples to proton irradiation at CERN to mimic the effects of a nuclear detonation. The material exhibited greater resistance to breaking after the exposure, suggesting nuclear weapons may better serve to deflect asteroids, not break them.

Watch the Challenger disaster unfold in real time

On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart just 73 seconds after liftoff. This live CNN broadcast captures the tragedy as it happened—second by second—showing the shock and confusion of one of NASA's darkest moments.

A 36-year-old Russian physicist survived a particle accelerator beam to the head

Several safety mechanisms failed during Anatoli Bugorski's inspection of malfunctioning equipment at the U-70 synchrotron, the Soviet Union's largest particle accelerator. Despite receiving as much as 600 times the lethal dose of radiation to the brain, he has shown no intellectual damage and worked until the age of 77.

A primer on the president's nuclear football

During the Cold War, the United States and the USSR were forced to prepare for a nuclear strike at a moment's notice, leading to a new innovation: the so-called "football" (known as the chemodanchik in Russia), a bag containing nuclear strike plans, authentication codes, and likely a communication device, which attended the country's leader wherever they went. This easy-to-read piece breaks down the history and lore around the high-stakes quirk in nuclear governance.

Hiroshimaites are glass-like spheres of fallout debris found in Hiroshima, where conditions created by the atomic bomb forged a previously unknown metal alloy with a unique crystal structure.

The atomic bombs dropped on Japan had massive human costs

The US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 killed around 210,000 people—more than 38,000 of them estimated to be children—with tens of thousands more later dying from radiation-linked illnesses, leaving lifelong trauma and increased cancer risks.

The Chernobyl disaster released more radioactive material than the Hiroshima bomb.

More than 500,000 people worked to contain Chernobyl's fallout, many with very little radiation protection.

While both are nuclear weapons, atomic bombs release nuclear energy by splitting large atomic nuclei, whereas hydrogen bombs derive most of their energy from fusing heavy hydrogen isotopes.

A nuclear reactor's characteristic blue light is produced from superluminal particles

When light travels through water, its effective speed is 25% lower than its speed in a vacuum. Just as sound waves bunch up and produce a sonic boom when objects move faster than the speed of sound, particles moving faster than this reduced speed generate a shock wave of light, visible as a blue hue.

NUKEMAP lets you model the effects of a nuclear detonation anywhere on Earth

The tool was built by Alex Wellerstein, a historian of nuclear technology at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. NUKEMAP uses declassified weapons data to calculate blast radius, thermal radiation, fallout patterns, and estimated casualties for any nuclear device dropped on any city. More than 50 million people have used it since its 2012 launch.

Why train derailments happen, 101

In 2021 alone, there were over 1,000 reported derailments in the US—and no amount of maneuvering will reduce those numbers to zero. This 101 explains the causes of train derailments and how safety protocols look to limit them each year.