Once again, the world is on edge after North Korea completed its sixth and most powerful nuclear test. Reports say the Hermit Kingdom tested a hydrogen bomb — but did it? Nuclear expert Alexander Uvarov believes North Korea might be bluffing about the type of bomb it tested.

Sputnik News reports:

North Korea claimed Sunday that it had successfully conducted a test of a hydrogen bomb, which had generated a 50 kiloton detonation, meaning that the blast was tantamount to exploding 50,000 tons of dynamite. The Japanese Defense Ministry later commented that the yield of the nuclear weapon that had been tested may have been as high as 70 kt, according to preliminarily estimates.

The bomb, it said, was designed to be mounted on its newly developed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Alexander Uvarov, an editor-in-chief of the Russian website AtomInfo.ru, commented to Sputnik on the test, saying that judging by the announced yield of explosion (just a few dozen kilotons), it might have been not a thermonuclear device in the modern sense of the word, but a so-called “boosted device”, an atomic bomb that uses some hydrogen isotopes to enhance its explosive yield.

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“It is a long-established physical principle, offered way back at the end of 1940s – beginning of 1950s, which became one of the stages of development of the thermonuclear programs of the USSR and the US,” he told Sputnik.