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Update  North Korea claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb on September 3, its sixth nuclear test and approximately six times as strong as its test in September 2016, according to the South Korea’s meteorological administration. This followed weeks of rising tensions and a war of words between U.S. President Donald Trump and the pariah state about nuclear capability. The spark for the (so-far) verbal fire was Pyongyang’s fresh claim in early August that it is able to hit the U.S. Pacific island of Guam with a nuclear strike. North Korea aspires to have the entire U.S. Mainland within striking range.

Here is what we knew about the bite of the North’s nuclear bark prior to the latest test. How Powerful Is a North Korean Warhead? Tests involving nuclear explosions show progress regarding the power of the blast North Korea can cause.

A 2006 explosion detonated a plutonium-fueled atomic bomb with a yield equivalent to 2 kilotons of TNT, data from D.C.-based think tank the shows. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima by the U.S. Military in 1945 had an estimated yield of about 16 kilotons.

North Korea’s latest tests have since surpassed that figure more than twofold. In 2009, a test increased this power four times from the 2006 blast to 8 kilotons; several tests later, a September 2016 blast yielded 35 kilotons. The ability to deliver this blast to the U. Testamentul Francez Pdf Free on this page. S. Is the challenge North Korea faces now. Tests of their missiles’ range have shown a considerable increase of capabilities, stretching now to potentially 10,400 kilometers (6,500 miles). These test launches have not been carried out with a nuclear warhead, and the calculations of putting the two together is what keeps North Korea from boasting the ability to fire a warhead at massive distances. Targeting the U.S.

September 27, 2016. Primer: North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program and International Economic Sanctions.

Mainland requires precisely this sort of capability. The Warhead Takes Flight Warhead miniaturization is a crucial step in turning a potential nuclear bomb into a nuclear missile. Install Yahoo Messenger Emoticons Pidgin Signed there. The process of miniaturization consists of finding the most compact design to mount the physics package—the nuclear payload of a missile—on the ICBM without disruting the missile's flight. The way North Korea is likely pursuing this is by using the common so-called “implosion design,” in which the nuclear fissile material is exploded by a chamber of conventional explosives, Matthew Kroenig, nonproliferation expert at the Atlantic Council, says.

“You have your fissile material—plutonium is preferred—in a loosely packed sphere, and you surround it with conventional explosives. You need them to detonate at the same time; otherwise the plutonium blows out the other end.” If the detonations are not simultaneous, the best-case scenario is the triggering of a chain reaction that mostly wastes the fissile material. The worst-case scenario is that it does not cause a nuclear chain reaction at all. This is the design North Korea is probably already using, says Tom Plant, director of the proliferation and nuclear policy program at London’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).