Skip to main content

These websites let users calculate the damage from a nuclear missile

nukemap missilemap nuclear weapons cuban missile crisis dc
Image used with permission by copyright holder
As if we weren’t all on edge enough following the accidental release of an imminent ballistic missile warning in Hawaii (thankfully a false alarm), a historian who studies science and nuclear weapons created two applications that are outright scary.

The first, Missilemap, lets users precisely calculate the range, accuracy and warhead size of a nuclear weapon, launched from anywhere in the world, and with a target anywhere in the world. Missilemap was designed to make it easy to see the relationship between missile range, accuracy, and warhead size to help people understand the power of nuclear warheads and long-range missiles.

In real-time use, Missilemap creates a graphical representation of ranges, targeting paths, accuracy, blast damage, and probabilities of death. In simple terms, you can theoretically ask if North Korea can hit, say, Honolulu or San Francisco, with their latest missile.

Its companion app, Nukemap, lets users pick their target and see how the target zone would be affected by a nuclear blast, including the fireball radius, radiation radius, air blast radius, and thermal radiation radius. Users can also export findings from Missilemap to Nukemap to see how their targets would fare.

For a single example, if we target Honolulu with a 10-kiloton weapon allegedly tested by North Korea in 2013, the app calculates that the fireball would be 500 feet, give victims third-degree burns up to a mile away, and result in nearly 50,000 fatalities and nearly 100,000 injured victims.

Meanwhile, if we target New York City with a “Tsar Bomba,” the largest weapon ever designed by the USSR and carrying a 100-megaton payload, we get a fireball nearly four miles in diameter, burns up to 45 miles away, and 8,012,450 fatalities.

The websites are the brainchildren of Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and technology at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Wellerstein, who has devoted his life to the study of nuclear arms and their effects on geopolitics, is on the advisory committee of the Atomic Heritage Foundation as well as the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues. He is also the author of “Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog.”

The sites aren’t meant to be used by professionals who work in the field of nuclear security. Wasserstein notes that the apps use somewhat simplified models for understanding the effects of nuclear weapons. All of the data employed by these sites come from unclassified sources.

As far as the geopolitical implications of the site, Wasserstein takes a position and it’s a clear one. On the Nukemap site, he writes:

“The Nukemap is aimed at helping people visualize nuclear weapons on terms they can make sense of — helping them to get a sense of the scale of the bombs. By allowing people to use arbitrarily picked geographical locations, I hope that people will come to understand what a nuclear weapon would do to places they are familiar with, and how the different sizes of nuclear weapons change the results.”

Editors' Recommendations

Clayton Moore
Clayton Moore’s interest in technology is deeply rooted in the work of writers like Warren Ellis, Cory Doctorow and Neal…
Best SSD deals: Samsung 990 Pro discounts
Samsung 990 PRO SSD over a dark background.

As recently as a decade ago, you would most likely be using HDDs for storage, which tend to be quite slow and take up an absolute tone of space, even the smaller form factor ones made for laptops. If you wanted something a bit more fancy, like a modern M.2 SSD, you'd be paying a huge premium even for smaller sizes like 256GB and 512GB. Luckily there have been huge leaps in technology and manufacturing, and these days you can get your hands on the best SSDs for a pretty good price. Not only does that mean that you can save space, but you can also load Windows and your applications a lot faster, something we expect to see in the best gaming PCs and gaming laptops. If you need a new SSD to upgrade a gaming rig, check out RAM deals and GPU deals as well. If you need something that can swap between multiple devices, you'll prefer checking out external hard drive deals.
Our favorite SSD deal

If you're looking for something that's top-of-the-line and won't break the bank, then the Samsung 990 PRO is probably the way to go. It has the newer PCIe 4.0 standard, which makes it a great PS5 SSD if you can get it a heatsink, and it has a read speed of 7450 Mbps and a write speed of 6900 Mbps, so it's lightning fast. The 2TB model here has been discounted down to just $190 from the original $250, so you're saving a pretty solid $60 in the process. There is a 1TB version that's cheaper if you don't think you need that much, as well as a 4TB model that's great for those who have a tendency to hoard data.

Read more
Best Surface Laptop and Surface Pro deals: From $523
Microsoft Surface Go 3 sitting on table.

While the MacBook Air has become synonymous with being a high-quality and lightweight laptop, it does mean that you'd have to be part of the Apple ecosystem. Luckily, there are some great alternatives out there, and Microsoft's Surface lineup is made specifically to compete with MacBook deals. While the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 aren't quite here yet, at least at the consumer level, you can still grab the latest models with some pretty great deals. That's why we've gone out and looked for our favorite Surface Laptop and Surface Pro deals and compiled them all here for you to save you the hassle, although if these don't quite do it for you, be sure to check out other great laptop deals and 2-in-1 laptop deals as well.
Microsoft Surface Go 3 -- $523, was $550

Functioning as a 2-in-1 laptop that can switch between tablet mode and laptop mode, the Microsoft Surface Go 3 won't have trouble dealing with basic tasks as it's equipped with the Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y processor and 8GB of RAM. The 10.5-inch touchscreen with 1920 x 1080 resolution is bright and colorful, and its 128GB SSD is more than enough for your documents. The Microsoft Surface Go 3 ships with Windows 11 Home in Mode, so you can start using it as soon as you unbox it. The device also promises up to 11 hours of battery life before requiring a recharge.

Read more
Best monitor deals: Gaming, office, curved, OLED and more
Dell UltraSharp 27 4K PremierColor Monitor

Whether you're grabbing yourself one of these desktop computer deals or just want to upgrade to a new monitor, you'll be happy to know that the market has really boomed in the past few years. Not only have monitors gotten cheaper, but they're also packed with more features and specs for the same price. Also, it's worth noting that even if you're running a laptop, connecting a second screen can be really handy for work or even gaming, so don't completely ignore these deals if you are using a laptop.

As such, now is a great time to pick a monitor up since even the best monitors have some sort of deal on them, including some standout Samsung monitor deals. These will pair well with gaming PC deals, especially the 4K monitors and ultrawide monitors near the bottom of this list.
Best monitor deals

Read more