Universe TV - The Universe TV - Stephen Hawking TV - Stanley Woosley - First on the Moon TV - The Italian Job 1969 - Face/Off 1997 - Roland Top TV - Secret State TV - Misha Glenny - Philip Larkin – Predestination 2014 - Jamie Redknapp - The Secret Agent TV - Roger Cook TV - How the Universe Works TV - Jim Al-Khalili TV - Hiroshima TV - 9/11: Secret Explosions in the Towers TV - Mobsters: Danny Greene TV - James Fox TV - Ghost Fleet of Bikini Atoll TV - Horizon TV - Big Bang in Tunguska 2008 - Play for Today TV - Seconds from Disaster TV - Strange Evidence TV -
When a star a hundred times heavier than our Sun switches off it goes with a bang. While we see the outward explosion as a supernova, this masks the inward implosion. The core is collapsing into the most dangerous object in the universe; the density becomes so great in the centre that Gravity sucks in Time and Space itself. Universe: Stars
A normal supernova arises from the explosion of a star ten times more massive than our sun. Incredibly, Supernova 2006 GY as astronomers have dubbed it seems to have signalled the death of a star 150 or even 200 times more massive – and that’s about as massive as a star can get. The Universe s1e10, Life and Death of a Star, History 2007
They are cosmic killers. Spectacular detonations. That for an instant out-shine a whole galaxy. Out of this exceptional cosmic catastrophe comes creation ... Supernovas: the sensational death of stars produce the biggest blasts in the universe. The Universe s2e9: Supernovas
A mighty supernova goes off somewhere in the universe every second. ibid.
Type 1A supernovas release no hydrogen; explosions are uniform in size and luminosity; type 2 supernovas release large amounts of hydrogen; the explosions vary greatly in size and luminosity. ibid.
The biggest explosion in the known universe: a gamma-ray burst. The Universe s4e1: Death Stars
Enormous asteroid impacts that rain death from the sky. Entire planets colliding and turning worlds into dust. A black hole that has been blowing away the rest of its galaxy for a hundred million years. And massive stars that rock the universe like nothing else. Get ready to be blown away. The Universe s4e4: Biggest Blasts
10) Death From the Sky: Chixolu Impact
9) Martian Impact: Meteor into Mars
8) The Big Splat: Asteroid the size of Mars slamming into Earth
7) When Worlds Collide
6) Magnetar Flares
5) The 100 Million Year Blast
4) Short Gamma Ray Bursts
3) Supernovas
2) Long Gamma Ray Bursts
1) The Big Bang: technically an expansion not an explosion. ibid.
In 1971 a Nasa satellite snapped ... an explosion in the corona no-one had seen before. The solar particles speed to the Earth ... Coronal Mass Ejections ... Currently the most powerful known explosion in the solar system. The Universe s5e7: Total Eclipse
It is the single most violent event in the present universe. In a few short seconds a supernova produces more energy than the sun will in its lifetime. When astronomers analysed the light of supernovae they saw the signatures of the elements heavier than iron. Supernovae scatter their seeds across the universe. Stephen Hawking’s Universe: in the Beginning, BBC 1997
A Type 1A supernova is a twenty billion billion billion megaton thermonuclear carbon bomb. Professor Stan Woosley
Florida, July 1969: the early morning calm is rocked by a massive explosion. The blast as powerful as two hundred tons of TNT heralds the start of one of the greatest endeavours in history. The first mission to the moon. First on the Moon: The Untold Story, 2005
You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off! The Italian Job 1969 starring Michael Caine & Noel Coward & Benny Hill & Tony Beckley & Raf Vallone & Rossano Brazzi & Maggie Blye & Irene Handl & John le Mesurier & Fred Emney et al, director Peter Collinson
We’ll blow something up. It’s more fun. Face/Off 1997 starring John Travolta & Nicolas Cage & Joan Allen & Alessandro Nivola & Gina Gershon & Dominique Swaine & Nick Cassavetes & Harve Presnell & Colm Feore et al, director John Woo, Cage to Travolta
In the nineteenth century engineers struggled to keep up with the demand to build roads, railways and canals. There was only one alternative to a man with a pickaxe and that was to use explosives. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations: The European Story s3e5: Big Bang, Discovery 2005
The Italian Chemist Ascanio Sobrero had created a monster. The problem with nitroglycerine is it’s very unstable, extremely dangerous. You can never tell when it’s going to go boom! Nitroglycerine was the most destructive explosive that had ever been found ... Alfred Nobel however was determined to tame it. ibid.
After several accidents the Californian government actually banned Nobel’s blasting oil because it was so unstable. Alfred Nobel wasn’t having the best of luck in Europe either. Despite all of his attempts to make things as safe as possible his Swedish factory blew up. His explosives empire was booming. He had built a German factory near Hamburg. Unfortunately, when this was also destroyed in a violent explosion he decided to continue his research out of harm’s way ... Would Nobel live long enough to succeed? ibid.
19 people were killed and 94 injured in an explosion at the nearby Petrofex Refinery. Secret State s1e1 starring Gabriel Byrne & Charles Dance & Rupert Graves et al, radio report, Channel 4 2012
But at 1.28 p.m. on that March 12th a new and most sinister element joined the merry pandemonium: the roar of half a ton of the world’s most powerful explosive. RDX, ripping up from the underground garage of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), and into the pit where traders were just preparing for the lunch bell. Misha Glenny, McMafia
Over the next two hours, a further seven bombs went off at crowded locations throughout the city, while grenades were thrown in another two places by men on motorcycles. ibid.
On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
In the sun the slagheap slept ... Philip Larkin, The Explosion
The press have dubbed him the Fizzle bomber. We stopped him this time, but this was only a small attack. This is his grand plan: March 1975 – he keeps changing the day – the explosion will level ten blocks of New York and leave over eleven thousand dead. Predestination 2014 starring Ethan Hawke & Sarah Snook & Monique Heath & Olivia Sprague & Noah Taylor & Madeleine West & Christopher Kirby & Freya Stafford & Jim Knobeloch & Christopher Stollery & Tyler Coppin & Rob Jenkins et al, directors Michael & Peter Spierig
Jane, I work for a new organisation seeking young women like yourself to train on a career in the civil service. We’re what you might call progressive. ibid. recruiter
It’s re-shaping wrong-doings … Finding people who are special … For people with exception abilities … You see the work we do is complicated. ibid.
This new ball literally explodes off the players foot. Jamie Redknapp
I take payments from the Russian embassy. I suppose I’m a spy. They wanted an explosion. And if I didn’t give it to them … The Secret Agent III, him to her, opening scene, BBC 2016
It’s [Satanism] going through an explosion at the present time. And has been over the last thirty years. Roger Cook, The Cook Report: Devil’s Work, Reverend Kevin Logan, ITV 1989
Our universe is violent and deadly. There are mega cosmic explosions everywhere. Solar flares millions of kilometres high erupt from the sun. Magnetic planets tear worlds apart. Stella explosions fire gamma rays halfway across the universe. Mega flares illuminate the universe. How the Universe Works s2e4: Megaflares: Cosmic Firestorms, Discovery 2010
If the gunpowder is confined into a tiny place, the gas that’s released provides thrust that pushes the bamboo shoots in this case in the opposite direction. And this is the principle of the rocket: a force in one direction producing a force in the other direction. Jim Al-Khalili, Revolutions III: Rocket, BBC 2019
This is the story of the first ever use of a weapon of mass destruction. The target was an empire with its own secret weapon: suicide bomber. On 6th August 1945 a bomb unlike any other fell from the skies above Hiroshima. The bomb was designed by some of the world’s finest scientists. Using it was one of the most momentous political decisions ever made. Hiroshima, BBC 2020
The entire city of Hiroshima was annihilated in just a few seconds. ibid.
The force of the explosion was estimated to be the equivalent of 67 million sticks of dynamite. ibid.
The bomb left San Francisco on board the USS Indianapolis two hours after the successful test in New Mexico. ibid.
Why did these two huge buildings collapse the way they did? … Built to survive a direct impact from an airliner, could office fires really cause two of the world’s most sophisticated buildings to collapse? 9/11: Secret Explosions in the Towers, Channel 5 2020
‘Many architects and engineers, technical and building professionals, have found evidence for explosive-controlled demolitions.’ ibid. Richard Gage
‘The official report does not account for the hundreds of witness testimonies of explosions.’ ibid.