Nuclear weapons are often measured in kilotons, but that doesn't really tell the story of a weapon's destructive power.

Now, a new Google Maps mashup called Ground Zerolets you see the radius of thermal damage caused by a nuclear weapons blast centered at the address of your choice. In the screenshot at the right, we can see that an American-made B61 bomb hitting Wired HQ would knock out most of San Francisco.

The visualization tool comes courtesy of Carlos Labs, an Australian coding firm. It appears that they used the same (or similar) data as the Federation of American Scientists. The FAS writes that most buildings within the inner circle will be "completely destroyed." The next circle will be fire-filled, and the outer regions would experience major damage from the blast shockwave.

If you want to understand what these colored circles mean, head over to the Department of Energy's Historical Test Films page and take a look at some of the footage of the American military's nuclear weapons tests.

Via > @digidave > Digital Inspiration

Image: National Nuclear

Security Administration / Nevada Site Office

See Also:

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter , Google Reader feed, and project site, Inventing Green: the lost history of American clean tech; Wired Science on Facebook.