What is a mushroom cloud? Video showing giant smoke over Kharkiv goes viral after Russian forces blow up gas pipeline

The Russian military recently blew up Ukraine's natural gas pipeline in Kharkiv, resulting in a massive explosion and a "mushroom cloud." On Sunday, February 27, Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection announced the news. They also labeled the incident as an "environmental catastrophe."

At the same time, the explosion and the cloud could be seen in a video released via the Telegram app. Meanwhile, how the Russian troops blew up the pipeline is still unknown. However, Ukraine's attempt at supplying other nations with natural gas could explain why the pipeline might have been targeted.

The Russian military's offensive in Kharkiv has reportedly resulted in many civilian casualties. At the same time, the viral video of the pipeline explosion confused some viewers as to the origin and nature of the blast. Few viewers initially thought the cloud to be propelled by a nuclear blast.

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What creates a mushroom cloud?

The cloud's name is self-explanatory in nature, as it is essentially a cloud of debris and smoke that rises to the sky occupying a mushroom shape. This specific cloud shape is caused by the rapid expansion of extremely hot bubbles of gas that rise up and interact with the surrounding cooler air, thereby creating a vacuum below.

This vacuum then causes a bulb-shaped form of smoke and debris at the top and a thinner shaft of the explosion towards the bottom.

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Gas pipeline explosion's Mushroom cloud explained

Mushroom-shaped clouds are also associated with nuclear blasts as their pop-culture depictions have generally showcased the 'mushroom' form. In contrast, non-nuclear explosions showcased in such content usually do not have such shapes.

In reality, explosions of non-nuclear origin may take a similar 'mushroom' form if the temperature is high enough. This explains why the gas pipeline blast in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv had a mushroom cloud.

Furthermore, the term for this explosion appears to have been coined before the atomic bomb's advancement in the 1950s. The reason why the explosion in Kharkiv had a mushroom-shaped cloud is possible because the temperature of the fireball reached north of 3500K. According to Radioactive Fallout After Nuclear Explosions and Accidents by Y.A. Izrael, such clouds occur when the fireball reaches temperatures around 3500K to 4100K.

Thus, it is likely that the Kharkiv gas pipeline explosion reached such a temperature. Research conducted by scholars of China's Dalian University of Technology, Zhu Zhao, Jia Zhenyuan, and Luo Haizhu, shows that certain natural gas pipeline explosions can record temperatures beyond 3000K. This provides ground for the mushroom cloud that occurred in Kharkiv without a nuclear explosion.