When an atomic bomb explodes, intense heat and light radiate from the explosion site, bleaching unprotected areas. The shadows of people and objects, such as bicycles, scattered on sidewalks and buildings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the US atomic bombing. These shadows may have encapsulated each person’s final moments, similar to the ashes of the victims of the ancient volcanic eruption of Pompeii.
So how do these shadows form? When each bomb explodes, intense heat and light radiate from the explosion site, according to Dr. Michael Hartshorne, an expert at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in New Mexico. People and objects shield the structure behind by absorbing light and energy, bleaching the concrete or stone around the dark shadows.
In other words, the strange black shadows on the sidewalks and buildings are actually the appearance of that structure before the nuclear explosion. Because the rest of the surface has been bleached, the normally colored area looks like a black shadow. Human silhouettes appeared on a bank step in Hiroshima after an atomic bomb explosion.
The intense energy released in an atomic bomb explosion is due to nuclear fission. According to
