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WHAT ARE SALTED BOMBS?

A 'salted bomb' is a type of nuclear weapon that has been branded 'highly immoral' by some experts.

The device aims to spread deadly radioactive fallout as far as possible rather than maximise explosive force.

The result is lasting environmental damage and vast areas of land left uninhabitable for decades.

Salted bombs take their name from the phrase 'to salt the earth', meaning to render soil unable to host life.

They are able to contaminate a much larger area than a traditional 'dirty' atomic bomb, like those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

To increase the radioactive destruction of salted bombs, certain radioactive isotopes are added to the device.

Heavy metals like gold, cobalt or tantalum can be used.

Incorporating these metals into an atomic bomb would send high-energy neutrons at the stable element and turn it into a highly radioactive version.

The radioactive isotope would then contaminate huge swathes of land. 

A salted bomb is believed to be of lesser energy than other bombs due to these changes but could cause more long-term damage.

The idea of a salted bomb was first proposed by Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard during the Cold War.

Along with Albert Einstein, the scientist was instrumental in the beginning of the Manhattan Project.

No intentionally salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested but the UK tested a 1 kiloton bomb incorporating a small amount of cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer in 1957.

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