At closest point, distance between US, Russia is under 4 km. At their closest point, the distance between the United States and Russia is less than 4 kilometres. Although the countries are divided by the Bering Strait, which is 53 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, there are two islands located in its centre.

From east to west, it spans eleven time zones and over 5,700 miles–the distance from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok is even longer, over 6,000 miles. From south to north, Russia spans about 40° latitude (42° to 82°), a distance of over 2,500 miles.

approximately 55 miles

In fact, Russia is larger than the world’s 164 smallest countries combined, and is supposedly only just smaller than the entire surface area of Pluto. Russia is made up of 85 federal subjects, or regions, the largest of which is the Sakha Republic.

Russia is the largest country by far, with a total area of about 17 million square kilometers….The 30 largest countries in the world by total area (in square kilometers)

Nukes are far too tiny to do anything to perturb the sun – you’d need considerably more than the entire nuclear arsenal of Earth to do something as ‘small’ as make a visible mark on the moon. The largest nuclear bomb ever created, the Tsar Bomba, had a total energy yield when it was detonated of 2.10 × 10 17 J .

ELI5: Why are nuclear weapons so hard to develop if the technology for them has existed for 70 years? The hard part is getting enough weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, which is actually quite labor intensive and expensive to do, unless you have nuclear reactors – which many countries don’t.

While the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 prohibits non-nuclear powers from manufacturing nuclear weapons, it does not impose a general ban on the use or possession of nuclear weapons for all its parties.

Because uranium decays by alpha particles, external exposure to uranium is not as dangerous as exposure to other radioactive elements because the skin will block the alpha particles. Ingestion of high concentrations of uranium, however, can cause severe health effects, such as cancer of the bone or liver.

On 6 and 9 August, it will be 75 years since the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of World War Two. Those who survived the bombings are known as hibakusha.

GET INSIDE

1. Get inside the nearest building to avoid radiation.
2. Remove contaminated clothing and wipe off or wash unprotected skin if you were outside after the fallout arrived.
3. Go to the basement or middle of the building.
4. Stay inside for 24 hours unless local authorities provide other instructions.

According to Wellerstein, no matter which damage zone you’re in, the safest place to be during a nuclear blast is in a large, secure building. “If you do have some warning, find the nearest large, commercial, well-built building. If it’s got a basement, go in there.

three to five weeks

around 2-3 years

Some have questioned whether after knowing the full extent of the devastation and destruction caused by nuclear weapons, any state would ever use them again. “The rational answer is having them as deterrents, not wanting to normalize the use of these weapons for good, strong reasons,” Prof. Wellerstein said.