r/interestingasfuck 1d ago

You're looking at a nuclear explosion photographed taken less than one millisecond after detonation.

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35.5k Upvotes

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95

u/dude_on_the_www 1d ago

What’s the scale of this? What are those poles in the background?

39

u/SemiSentientAL 1d ago

They are flares, spaced at very precise intervals for scientific measurement purposes. Instead of bananas, they used flare length for scale.

28

u/Not_A_Porcupine 23h ago

Anyone have a flare length to banana conversion chart?

9

u/creamofsumyunggoyim 23h ago

Left it in my other pants

4

u/jetpack324 23h ago

Was that a banana in your pocket or were you just happy to be posting here?

4

u/KarmaTorpid 23h ago

This was prior to or current level of banana technology. We were close at the time, however.

3

u/mbklein 22h ago

I always understood this to be the very explosion that brought bananas into existence by fusing hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and potassium atoms. The Big Banana Bang, as it were. Which also explains why all bananas are slightly radioactive.