Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 6
By Dalga Khatinoglu – Trend:
One month after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un announced that his country developed a hydrogen bomb, local media said today the bomb has been tested, and linked the last night’s 5.1-magnitude tremor next to the country’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site to the underground bomb test.
But experts or security bodies of other countries haven’t confirmed that such a test indeed took place, as a nuclear or a hydrogen bomb can’t be tested in a clandestine manner, or due to fact that the depth of a tremor can’t be kept in secret.
This in turn has further put the validity of the bomb test reports under question.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is scheduled to hold a session in the coming days to further investigate the issue. Most probably, the North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test announcement, which coincided with an earthquake, is a political bluff that has only domestic consumption.
Both theoretically and practically, making a hydrogen bomb, which is similar to a process taking place in the Sun – called fusion – is much more complicated than making an ordinary nuclear bomb based on fission. Making a hydrogen bomb requires increasing temperature in the process to several million degrees Celsius to pave the way for a nuclear fusion. This is similar to the process that occurs in stars, when temperature rises so high that it makes fusion possible among hydrogen atoms.
Meanwhile, a radiation case, or a hohlraum is needed to contain the free neutrons in order to raise the temperature to several million degrees Celsius and create conditions for a nuclear fusion.
In other words, a hydrogen bomb intrinsically includes nuclear fission of unstable radioactive substances, such as uranium and plutonium. North Korea found the technology to make fission-based nuclear bombs a decade ago. The country, which is isolated from the global community, has so far conducted three nuclear tests. But, it is doubtful whether it could acquire a technology that India or Pakistan haven’t been able to acquire.
It is true that humans are a result of a nuclear fusion – all the atoms making the Earth, galaxies and our bodies have been the result of a nuclear fusion. However, the nuclear fusion is also a nightmare for human beings. A hydrogen bomb has the destructive power of several million times more than an ordinary nuclear bomb.
So, such a technology’s being acquired by an unaccountable country, as North Korea could be a global disaster. And as many theorists had predicted, production of such weapons – the thermonuclear weapons probably capable of destroying the whole human culture and even the human race – hadn’t been limited to a few countries.
There is always a threat of military action or conflict in interests among countries. And at a time when some countries hold strategic weapons, others will have no feeling of security.
---
Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector and head of Trend Agency's Iran news service
Follow us on Twitter @TRENDNewsAgency
