Mushroom cloud

Mushroom clouds are a mushroom shaped explosion, with lots of smoke, fire, and sometimes water vapour that come from explosions. Usually they are associated with nuclear explosions, but any large explosion can produce a mushroom cloud.

Mushroom Cloud Media

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  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.

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  Mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, on 9 August 1945

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  Vue du siège de Gibraltar et explosion des batteries flottantes View of the Siege of Gibraltar and the Explosion of the Floating Batteries, artist unknown, c. 1782

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  Mushroom cloud in an engraving from Gerhard Vieth's Physikalischer Kinderfreund, 1798

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  Inside a rising mushroom cloud: denser air rapidly forces itself into the bottom center of the toroidal fireball, which turbulently mixes into the familiar cloud appearance.

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  Mushroom cloud size as a function of yield.

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  The mushroom cloud from the 15-megaton Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test, showing multiple condensation rings, 1 March 1954