France exploded this nuclear weapon at Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia on July 3, 1970. Atmospheric explosions are now banned by treaty and relatively easy to detect. Most monitoring efforts today focus on detecting explosions underground.
Image: Sygma/Corbis
In Brief
- Seismic monitoring can now detect a nuclear explosion with a yield of a kiloton or more anywhere on Earth. In many places, detection is far more sensitive than that.
- President Barack Obama is likely to ask the U.S. Senate to reconsider its 1999 vote against the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
- Treaty opponents have argued that some signatories would cheat by testing explosive nuclear weapons in secret, putting noncheaters at risk.
- The objection that secret tests could go undetected is no longer seriously credible.
More In This Article
As president, I will reach out to the Senate to secure the ratification of the CTBT [Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty] at the earliest practical date and will then launch a diplomatic effort to bring onboard other states whose ratifications are required for the treaty to enter into force.
—Barack Obama, September 10, 2008
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10 Comments
Add CommentAmazing article. Does anyone know any references concerning North Korea and HEU? Was it supposed to say PU?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about deep space tests?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe CTBT prohibit the space tests, but there are no verification methods suggested...
ctbto.org disingeniously reformulate the the treaty as "no test on Earth", "no tests on the planet" but there is no exception for deep space tests in the treaty itself.
There are highly classified space missions all the time, and with RTG (radioisotopic thermal generator) and n/reactors being legal on spacecrafts, n/materials on SC could be easily "explained out".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd many classified mission are designed to be difficult/impossible to track.
China, Russia, India, and France all have the technology to do deeps space tests. Israel is close.
And with deep space tests, even if you detect one, it would be extremely difficult to attibute the event to a specific country.
what an arrogance! they already know that there will be a great disaster that will follow if they launch a next nuclear test and they still do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShame about Mike
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this actually interesting still?
Frankly someone needs to use one of these expensive weapons (if they actually work properly). Is Barrak Obama simply soliciting the Schitzophrenia of his nation or recruiting a team of bright young students to try and get a cheap thermonuclear detonator to work?
Given the the delivery system is 'tired' and and the plutonium is needed elsewhere perhaps the president has the 'proper' approach.
Belief in God
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMuslims believe in one, unique, incomparable God, Who has no son nor partner, and that none has the right to be worshipped but Him alone. He is the true God, and every other deity is false. He has the most magnificent names and sublime perfect attributes. No one shares His divinity, nor His attributes. In the Qur'an, God describes Himself (interpretation of the meaning): "Say, 'He is God, the One. God, to Whom the creatures turn for their needs. He begets not, nor was He begotten, and there is none like Him'" [112:1-4]. No one has the right to be invoked, supplicated, prayed to, or shown any act of worship, but God alone. God alone is the Almighty, the Creator, the Sovereign, and the Sustainer of everything in the whole universe. He manages all affairs. He stands in need of none of His creatures, and all His creatures depend on Him for all that they need. He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, and the All-Knowing. In a perfect manner, His knowledge encompasses all things, the open and the secret, and the public and the private. He knows what has happened, what will happen, and how it will happen. No affair occurs in the whole world except by His will. Whatever He wills is, and whatever He does not will is not and will never be. His will is above the will of all the creatures. He has power over all things, and He is able to do everything. He is the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and the Most Beneficent.
In one of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), we are told that God is more merciful to His creatures than a mother to her child. [Narrated in Saheeh Muslim, #2754, and Saheeh Al-Bukhaaree, #5999] God is far removed from injustice and tyranny. He is All-Wise in all of His actions and decrees. If someone wants something from God, he or she can ask God directly without asking anyone else to intercede with God for him or her. God is not Jesus, and Jesus is not God. [It was reported by the Associated Press, London, on June 25, 1984, that a majority of the Anglican bishops surveyed by a television program said, “Christians are not obliged to believe that Jesus Christ was God.” The poll was of 31 of England’s 39 bishops. The report further stated that 19 of the 31 bishops said it was sufficient to regard Jesus as “God’s supreme agent.” The poll was conducted by London Weekend Television’s weekly religious program, “Credo.”]
Even Jesus himself rejected this. God has said in the Qur'an (interpretation of the meaning): "Indeed, they have disbelieved who have said, 'God is the Messiah (Jesus)...
The "Fifty Years of Nuclear Testing and Monitoring" side column has a bit of an error. The USSR's bomb was not named the "Big John." It was named the "Tzar (Czar) Bomba" meaning "King bomb" because it was the highest yield weapon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat article.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey people, check out
http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Debate:_Comprehensive_Nuclear-Test-Ban_Treaty#Pro
Amazing article counter to the above...
From 1966 thru 1979 I worked a the LASA Data Center [ Large Aperture Seismic Array ] . A collection of 500+ seismometers spread out over a 200km circle in eastern Montana. The prime job was to detect earthquakes world wide - and then determine that the detection which had a source time of 12 noon :00.000 with a depth of zero from a non-seismic area - wasn't an earthquake. Philco-Ford had the contract to install and run the facility. It was MIT designed and funded by DARPA. The smallest real earthquake, at any distance, was a mag 3.2 from Japan. Any underground nuclear test from Russia or China would come through the LASA Array at 5000 to 50,000+ nanometers. nominal background noise ran 2 to 10 nanometers. Earthquakes are compressional to 1/2 the world or dilatational to the other 1/2. Nuclear test are compressional, no mater where you are. No one can drill a hole deep enough to generate a pP wave. Plus 20 other finger prints. After 12 years the Government developed "other" inputs ;-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should have said plutonium, not uranium. The editors agreed to publish a correction in the July issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, the Figure on page 74 (a map showing detection thrsholds by region) should have made clear that it is an estimate of future capability---when all 50 primary stations are built and operated according to specifications. (The map is quite accurate today, for regions where this network is complete.)