Originally Posted: September 8, 2017
At 9:30 p.m. Central time last Saturday, detectors around the world picked up signs of a massive explosion in the vicinity of North Korea’s nuclear test site.
The country claimed, for the second time in less than two years, that it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, a weapon far more powerful than the bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
The last time North Korea said it had a hydrogen bomb, in January 2016, experts quickly dismissed its claim. This time, some say it’s a possibility. “The magnitude of this event is bigger than any U.S. or Russian test since the early ’70s,” said Brian Stump, a seismologist at Southern Methodist University, which operates two seismic detectors for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization.
Shock waves from the explosion clearly registered on the SMU-operated detectors near Big Bend National Park in Texas and in Mina, Nev. Here’s what scientists know about the event — and how they know it. READ MORE