>>2555532I can only tell you things I've gleaned from /k/ before it became glownigger shill central, and various discussions around in other places
Nuclear fallout is basically heavy radioactive ash, it will follow wind patterns but most of it ends up pretty close to the site of the explosion because its heavy. Airbursts tend not to produce much fallout, ground bursts do. Ground bursts are targeted at well built structures - bunkers, airfields, ports, missile silos. Airbursts are targeted at more lightly built things - cities, towns, infantry in the field, etc.
Radioactive fallout, isotopes, ash, whatever, have half lives. Shorter half-lives result in more energy released in a shorter time frame, longer half lives the opposite. Isotopes with longer half lives are safer to be around because your overall exposure is lower for the same unit of time. What this means is you want to limit your exposure to immediate releases of radioactive fallout until the bad stuff decayed.
Gamma radiation is a high energy photon, it has no mass so it goes through things easily
Beta radiation is a high energy electron/positron, it has some mass, it tends not to go through things too well
Alpha radiation is a radioactive helium atom, it's pretty heavy and doesn't go through things well if at all
Neutron radiation is similar to alpha, it's a free neutron but you don't see this unless you're getting hit by the nuclear blast itself, the neutron can combine with things to make that thing radioactive (this is, I think, how most of the fallout is created)
A way to visualize fallout is that it's like glowing hot ash or embers and light sources, except the glow and heat are invisible to you and they won't just cook your skin, they'll cook inside and under your skin too. We've actually all had acute radiation burns - that's what sunburns are. Except in this case you're getting sunburns inside your body.
