Why so much more long-term radiation at Chernobyl than Hiroshima?

Question

Asked around the campfire the other night...I thought maybe its cause it was different isotopes?...but there has to be a better answer, any ideas?

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Answer 1

More fuel was released at Chernobyl.

Answer 2

I'm not a physicist but I would speculate that it would be because the radioactive material inside the bomb that created the destruction at Hiroshima was about 1/10,000th of the material at Chernobyl. That would mean the potential for about 10,000 times the radiation. In an atomic explosion, the atom is split, releasing the force all at once in a burst of power and radiation. Since it only requires critical mass to explode, the actual radiation, while deadly, is a burst that bathes everything in a radioactive blanket. Inherently, the radiation that is left is, while dangerous, not nearly that of a nuclear power plant meltdown. The meltdown is a slow reaction that releases the radiation in the core. Since the core isn't actually destroyed, merely superheated without explosion, the half life of the radioactive material in the core is what determines the radioactive dissipation. You get a lot of radiation leaking for a long time, and the core never (at least not for thousands of years) becomes non radioactive. The material in the nuclear bomb is destroyed, converted through the reaction to a different element all together.

Answer 3

I agree that Chernobyl had more radiation than the bomb.
It is also that bombs were exploded in mid-air, so lower amount of dust was irradiated. In Chernobyl a whole roof of the reactor was vaporised and went up.

I am not sure about the weather argument - Chernobyl had fallout trails going as far as UK and Scandinavia. Maybe the wind blew most of Hirosim radiation into the sea.

Answer 4

The short answer is that Chernobyl's explosion involved far more radioactive material reacting than Hiroshima - 2000 kg vs. about 1 kg of uranium.

Also, Chernobyl's explosion caused far more fallout, since the reaction happened around the materials it did and near the ground, as opposed to the Hiroshima explosion, which occurred in the air.

Answer 5

Because the Chernobyl reactor contained far more radioactive material than does an atomic bomb. The Hiroshima bomb had about thirty pounds of uranium; the Chernobyl reactor, like most power reactors, had many tons. The fission products generated by the bomb and the reactor are substantially the same. (Not exactly, because a reactor contains a lot of U-238, which has to be removed from a bomb.)

Answer 6

The blast force at hiroshima actually helped to disperse the irradiated particles. At Chernobyl, the meltdown released irradiated particles at a much lower velocity and it tended to settle in the area. Another factor is the weather patterns at the 2 sites. Hiroshima is nearer the coast line and subject to greater fluctuation in weather, which tends to disperse the particles even more. Chernobyl in inland far enough to be relatively stagnant.

Answer 7

Chernobyl was a nuclear plant where as Hiroshima was a bomb that was dropped.......difference is size

Answer 8

Two totally different technologies... The first atomic bomb was extremely primitive. There was no way to control or regulate it. It just went off...and dissipated over time.

Chernobyl was a harnessed, advanced nuclear energy. Much more potent. More advanced. Thus, more radiation...