Unconfirmed Rumors that Iran Has Exploded a Nuclear Bomb in an Underground Test

by

There are rumors that Iran exploded a nuclear bomb underground which caused a 4.5 earthquake. This is unconfirmed.

I do not believe these rumors. I would expect a different set of actions from Israel and Iran leading up to an actual underground nuclear test. Israel has Iran fully infiltrated with spies and spying. There is no way that Israel would be surprised by an Iranian nuclear test.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned that Iran’s breakout time, the time needed to produce enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear weapon, has reduced to probably one or two weeks. This indicates that Iran has significantly advanced its nuclear capabilities but does not confirm the possession or testing of a nuclear bomb.

23 thoughts on “Unconfirmed Rumors that Iran Has Exploded a Nuclear Bomb in an Underground Test”

  1. Get WW3 on with. Fry both sides. Somebody lob one over here to Philadelphia. I’m sick of this saber rattling – kick it off or STFU and crawl under a rock.

    I’m missing some information about why Iran thinks they can directly challenge Israel (aka the US government).

    • They think they can directly challenge Israel because the current administration is Democratic, and according to the latest Pew polling, Democrats have turned radically hostile to Israel. The amount of the funds we’ve been making sure they get are on a par with our aid to Israel lately.

      So, why wouldn’t they think we’d at least stay out of it?

  2. Confirmed or not, the Iranian nuclear weapon is a political decision, not a technological capability. They have a heavy water reactor in Arak, which can make both very pure Pu-239 and tritium; they have plenty of refined deuterium; and they have uranium enrichment. A decent boosted fission weapon production requires very pure plutonium-239, tritium and deuterium – Iran has or can make all that. And that is far more than was sufficient for the first boosted fission weapon test in 1951 – that is a 73 years old technology, plus the amount of high quality experimental nuclear data, nuclear computation codes and processing power that was unthinkable in 1951. If they want to make a compact weapon in the 1~100kt yield range for their big ballistic missiles, they can make it any time they want. Anyone with a brain, workshop and nuclear materials can do that today, which was actually tested in USA during “Nth Country Experiment” in 1964~1967: three young physicists who had just received their PhDs, with no prior weapons experience, developed a working nuclear weapon design, using only unclassified information, and with basic computational and technical support.

    If Iran needed to test a weapon in secret, they would do a zero-yield subcritical assembly test, just as anyone else has been doing for many years. The only reason to test a weapon and be detected is a declaration of nuclear capability, which is what North Korea did. Fools laughed at them at the time, calling their first test a “fizzle” (which is exactly what a good low-yield boosted design should produce without tritium load), but no one is laughing at them now. Iran has far better science and technology, resources and nuclear facilities, than North Korea.

  3. Highly unlikely given the depth of the event. Recorded nuclear tests are max of 1.5 miles. This was at more than 4x that depth

  4. Where did North Korea get its money to develop their nukes? If Iranians helped them with financing, couldn’t the exchange be that Iran can get nuclear cores with proven tests in North Korea? Then it’s a matter of a single flight from Pyongyang to Tehran with a plane filled with warheads to be integrated into the type of ballistic missiles that they just launched in waves with dozens making it through. How many Jews would be willing to risk their whole family for the principle of Zionism when they could just move to another country?

  5. It is one thing to explode a nuclear bomb as a lab test, but another to get it to the point where it could be launched by missile. If Iran really did have a successful nuclear test, I am pretty Israel is not going to wait for Iran to develop the technology to be able to put it into a missle and launch it.

  7. 25 Kg of weapons grade Uranium (90% U235) is needed for a bomb. That 128 Kg could probably yield 80 Kg if run through the final step. The Iranians could make three fission bombs with that. The question is of they can make Lithium Deuteride that could be used to “boost” those bombs. That is, to increase their yield from about 15 Kilotons to about 30 kilotons. Modern cities such as Tel Aviv and Tehran are far too large and sprawl like to be taken out by anything other than the largest thermonuclear bombs that were made during the cold war. However, a fission bomb could certainly take out a target like Dimona.

    • I meant Tritium, not Lithium Deuteride, to “boost” a fission bomb to twice its yield. Tritium can be made in conventional nuclear power reactors

      • Actuality lithium WAS used to “boost” the first hydrogen (fusion) bomb. It worked so well, it scared the s*** out of the people who built it. It created a “cascade effect” our people did not anticipate. Worse, did not understand. And, MUCH worse, could do nothing if it “ran away”. Not being a nuclear engineer, but knowing a bit more about chemistry, it makes sense to ad lithium to a fusion weapon, to say slow down transmission of say, neutron’s. But something happened when our first H bomb exploded with a yield several orders of magnitude above we thought it COULD have been. I’ve read a number of (now declassified) reports of what might have happened over the years. My favorite theory is the lithium acted less like a shield, and more like a sponge. It “sucked up” neutron’s, and other particles, until a “transition state” was reached, and “unloaded”. But who knows, the really sexy stuff, is still classified

        Put this way: Say you have 100lbs of dynamite. But the “explosive effects” would require at least 200lbs of dynamite. But you only had 100lbs. But the explosive effects CLEARLY INDICATE a dynamite blast of 200lbs. See the problem here? Translate that to a hydrogen bomb. Mommy, help!

        • They actually did figure out what happened, after the fact. They’d assumed the Li7 in the bomb (Present only because they didn’t have enough isotopically pure Li6.) would act just like an inert filler, and only the Li6 would generate energy. But that was based on their behavior when exposed to low energy neutrons.

          Turned out that high energy neutrons caused Li7 to fission, releasing more neutrons, and the multiplied neutron flux caused efficient extra fission in the uranium surrounding the bomb. So the total yield was three times more than expected.

          So they didn’t actually get a lot of good information on the bomb’s behavior, because the instruments got vaporized before their readings could be transmitted… In fact, the whole thing was a big mess.

          Albeit one that caused them to rethink hydrogen bomb designs.

  8. Out of my head you need 8 kg of uranium, plutonium is less but harder to manufacture. The world should intervene now, iran has been the axis of evil for milennia.
    The ayatholla will call for godblessed nuclear revenge now.

  9. I don’t think you need that much enriched uranium to make a bomb. Remember its a mass to energy event, so probably less than 20 grams of fully enriched uranium would make a bomb. I think Iran has had a nuclear weapons for years why would they boast about it? I don’t understand the desire to take from others or participate while others do. If pushed things could change in a way that everyone regrets. Stop now

    • Perhaps you should try staying in a Holiday Inn Express, and then rerun your calculations…

      So, one or two weeks, plus or minus a couple months? The Biden administration seems remarkably unconcerned about a world sponsor of terrorism having nuclear weapons. But I suppose if they found that sort of thing concerning, they wouldn’t have financed Iran’s nuke program by sending them so much money…

      • Biden probably thinks that it is not fair that Israel has nuclear weapons but Iran doesn’t. Equity is very important to him you know.

      • Trump threw out the agreement controlling Iran’s nuclear program. His only use for Jews is as voting fodder for his revenge, stay out of jail campaign.

      • What is Biden supposed to do? I have read that the Iranians were honoring the agreement with Biden. When Trump cancelled the agreement Iran again started to move closer to having a bomb. Do you think they would listen to Biden now? Would you?

      • There was an agreement for Iran not to develop nukes, which they were abiding to. It was Trump who cancelled the deal, effectively telling Iran to go ahead. If Iran has nukes now, its all on Trump.

    • I think 25 Kg is a minimum of 90% U235 to make a bomb. This assumes precision engineering. Less precision engineering would require a greater amount of U235. U235 bombs are quite large. They have to be aircraft delivered, or perhaps a missile with a large payload. Plutonium bombs are much smaller (and thus used as triggers for thermonuclear bombs).

      You only need 3-4 Kg of Plutonium for the same yield of bomb. But the engineering of a Plutonium bomb is more advanced. You have to implode the Pu239 from all directions within a few milliseconds. U235, on the other hand, can be a simply “shot-gun” device.

    • If I may ask, with respect, is English your first language? The way you construct your sentences. Sorry, but I spent a large part of my professional life deconstructing what people said to understand origin and intent. Anyway, 20 grams of even “Highly” enriched Uranium would make a serious dirty, but “conventional” bomb. Unless you have a laser-implosion detonator, (maybe), just don’t see 20 grams of uranium going critical. Plutonium would be a whole other problem.

      I agree, Iran certainly has the expertise and resources to have made a nuke many years ago. But why reveal that now? Hey, you don’t know what you got works (like a bomb), until you make it go boom. An underground nuclear explosion has a very identifiable signature, anywhere on Earth (It’s easier to “hide” a fart in church). In the early 1980’s, South Africa (possibly in association with Israel) detonated a nuclear weapon over the far south Atlantic ocean. Our VELA (USA) nuclear detection satellites saw this “flash”, in hard gamma and x-rays. Only nukes have such a signature.

      (Other then stars that blow up. and fortunately for us, up to now, have been far, far away) A nuclear weapon has, to now been an “implied” threat. I hope to God it stays that way. I don’t even believe in a “God”. But for something this important? What the hell.

Comments are closed.