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I wonder what ever happened to that manhole that got shot up by a nuclear explosion. (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Batmancer@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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I read somewhere it must’ve turned molten from the atmosphere, but l wonder if like little droplets of metal fell down to earth or if it was just vaporized.

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[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 55 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Anything that wasn't vaporized was likely launched out into space at speeds exceeding escape velocity for Earth's gravitational field by aat least a factor of 6. So if there was anything left after the explosion and wind friction, it's out in space, probably moving towards the sun.

The best part of that story is that the engineer on the project initially rejected the metal cap, because he knew it would not do anything to contain the blast. His supervisor overruled him, and insisted they install the cap. The engineer complied, but also ensured a high speed camera was trained on the cap to capture just how spectacularly stupid his manager was.

[-] starik@lemmy.zip 34 points 2 days ago

The high speed camera was intended to be used to calculate the speed of the cap. It was going so fast it was only captured in 1 frame, which is only enough information to put a lower limit on the speed.

[-] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 4 points 2 days ago

How do you calculate speed at all with only one frame?

[-] lycalopex@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 days ago

It was a lower bound. It had to have been traveling fast enough to only be captured in one frame.

[-] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 days ago

Gosh, the one frame probably didn't even have a reference time to work from.

[-] Keshara@piefed.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 days ago

You dont, hence why only a lower limit could be established with a single frame capture.

Basically like saying "if we only got 1 frame, then it must be going faster than x mph/kph"

[-] Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Distance between not moving and gone compiled against recording timestamp and detonation.

It's, not very accurate. But you do get a lower bound.

[-] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 5 points 2 days ago

Wouldn’t the air resistance be insane at those speeds? If it didn’t just slow it down significantly, the friction would add even more heat to it.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Yes, that's why most people believe it vaporized completely.

[-] starik@lemmy.zip 37 points 2 days ago

However, the detonated yield turned out to be 50,000 times greater than anticipated…

Just four and a half orders of magnitude off. Oops.

[-] tyrant@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

When Pascal-B was detonated, the blast went straight up the test shaft, launching the cap into the atmosphere. The plate was never found. In a conversation with Bill Ogle, Brownlee estimated its velocity as "six times the escape velocity from the Earth"—approximately 67.2 km/s (150,000 mph).[10] Scientists believe compression heating caused the cap to vaporize as it sped through the atmosphere

[-] tensorpudding@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

I'm sure it was vaporized but I still think we should get MythBusters to test it with modern camera and tracking equipment.

[-] Batmancer@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Oh my god yes. I’m generally against nuclear blasts but IF we are gonna keep doing it, why not in the most entertaining and educational way possible.

[-] marcos@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

Liquid things going in high speed through the atmosphere get atomized. So, yeah, it just became dust and went down in some rain.

[-] in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 14 points 2 days ago

Vaporized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Missing_steel_bore_cap

https://www.theregister.com/2015/07/16/america_soviets_space_race/

[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

Hypothetically, even if the heat of the blast didn’t vaporize it, I don’t see how something that size moving at 150,000 mph wouldn’t ablate from intense friction with the atmosphere before reaching space.

[-] Batmancer@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Dang couple friends using that word ablate in the comments. I gotta look it up.

Before I look it up, I imagined a scenario where it could happen. This is fresh out my butt brain(I’m playing with the phrase “pulling it out of my butt”, meaning making it up for my non-native english speaking friends) I could see this place(existence) playing a crazy trick that when something reaches a certain speed it creates a heat bubble kind of thing around the object, and the object is not affected by extreme heats, because the friction or air resistance around the object make a protective covering, kind of like how sharks have rough skin that grips the water around touching it to apply to the friction of the water around it. Although that’s what I remember from early school science classes.

Ablate is a fun word, in this case; To remove by erosion, melting, evaporation, or vaporization.

[-] Ageroth@reddthat.com 1 points 1 day ago

The leidenfrost effect is definitely a real and neat phenomenon

[-] markz@suppo.fi 10 points 2 days ago

My guess is that it just vaporized and then turned into dust.

[-] Mac@mander.xyz 5 points 2 days ago

It was vaporized before anything cool happened.

[-] expatriado@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

all we are is dust in the wind

this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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