B Nuclear Explosion Legs - What are They?

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I always wanted to ask a nuclear scientist about this. What are these weird wiggly thin lines we always see during a nuclear bomb detonation? If you look to the right side of the screen on the first video, they look like the "legs" of a fine whisky dribbling down a fine whisky glass. But what do they have to do with a nuke?



On the left side of the screen here:



And, again, you see these legs off to the left:

 
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They are the wakes of sounding rockets, launched vertically just before the detonation with the purpose of detecting the winds associated with the explosion.
 
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NTW said:
They are the wakes of sounding rockets, launched vertically just before the detonation with the purpose of detecting the winds associated with the explosion.

a spot on answer :smile:Dave
 

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