mushroom cloud
Sign in to savemushroom-shaped cloud produced by a large (often nuclear) explosion
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- flammagenitus
- Named after
- mushroom
- Image
- MountRedoubtEruption.jpg
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- Mushroom clouds
- Commons gallery
- Mushroom cloud
- has cause
- nuclear explosion
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~34 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Ascending cloud from Redoubt Volcano from an eruption on 21 April 1990. The mushroom-shaped plume rose from avalanches of hot debris (pyroclastic flows) that cascaded down the north flank of the volcano. Mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, on 9 August 1945
A mushroom cloud is a distinctive mushroom-shaped flammagenitus cloud of debris, smoke, and usually condensed water vapour resulting from a large explosion. The effect is most commonly associated with a nuclear explosion, but any sufficiently energetic detonation or deflagration will produce a similar effect. They can be caused by powerful conventional weapons, including large thermobaric weapons. Some volcanic eruptions and impact events can produce natural mushroom clouds.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “mushroom cloud” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.