# How would a nuclear blast on the moon affect its orbit? [duplicate]

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Something I'm contemplating: If one faction destroys a large structure of an enemy faction with a nuclear device equivalent to a WWII atomic bomb on the moon. Would the force of the explosion be enough to push the moon off its orbit to some extent?

## marked as duplicate by Hohmannfan, Frostfyre, Vincent, Brythan, JDługoszJul 17 '16 at 6:00

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• This is an example of a scale error. Teaspoons can shift water, so can you empty the ocean wit a teaspoon? – JDługosz Jul 16 '16 at 4:17

## 3 Answers

There would be no measurable effect.

Little Boy had a yield of $6.3×10^{13}$ joules. If you could direct all that energy into changing the orbit of the $7.3×10^{22}$ kg Moon, it would speed it up or slow it down by 0.00000000086 meters per second.

• Little Boy was a comparatively small and inefficient nuclear warhead, though. But even the biggest one ever detonated would not have a measureable impact on the moon orbit. – Philipp Jul 15 '16 at 23:43

No, the force of an Atomic blast isn't enough to significantly alter the Moon's orbit. Even the combined force of humanity's current nuclear stockpile is only enough to offset it the Moon's orbit by an unimaginably small amount.

Here's an answer to a similar question if you want more information:

https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/47418/21725

It wouldn't. A lot of people seem to think nukes are cosmically powerful, likely because of how devastating they are to our structures. But compared to a celestial body it's nothing, you'd need a substantial volume of antimatter explosives to destabilise such a large body, and even then doing so would simply rupture the moon into pieces.