Sacrifice Zones by Scientific American

The maps and visuals in Scientific American’s “Sacrifice Zones” illustrate the catastrophic fallout from a concerted nuclear attack on U.S. land-based missile silos, which are deliberately designed to act as targets in a nuclear war. Sébastien Philippe and his team at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security used real weather data to simulate radioactive fallout from detonations at 450 silos, revealing that nearly the entire population of the contiguous U.S., as well as parts of Canada and Mexico, could face lethal radiation exposure depending on wind patterns. The analysis critiques the U.S. Air Force’s $150 billion plan to replace Minuteman missiles with new Sentinel missiles by the mid-2030s, emphasizing the need for greater transparency about the true risks of these weapons so the public can make informed decisions about living with this danger for another half-century. By combining rigorous scientific modeling with striking visuals, the project reveals the human and environmental costs of the largest nuclear weapon build-up since the end of the Cold War.