double flash

noun

The characteristic visual phenomenon produced by the atmospheric detonation of a nuclear weapon, consisting of a very brief, bright flash of light which dims rapidly, followed by a second, gradually brightening flash.

Meanings

noundouble flash (plural double flashes)

plural double flashes

  1. The characteristic visual phenomenon produced by the atmospheric detonation of a nuclear weapon, consisting of a very brief, bright flash of light which dims rapidly, followed by a second, gradually brightening flash.

    The detected signal was a “double flash” characteristic of nuclear test signals recorded on 41 previous occasions by Vela satellites.

    2019 September, William Burr, Avner Cohen, Lars-Erik De Geer, Victor Gilinsky, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, with Sokolski, Henry, Weiss, Leonard, and Wright, Christopher, “Blast From the Past”, in Jonathan Tepperman, Ravi Agrawal, Dan Ephron, Cameron Abadi, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, Kathryn Salam, Sarah Wildman, James Palmer, Benjamin Soloway, Nina Goldman, editors, Foreign Policy, The Slate Group
    2 more examples

    On 22 September 1979 at about 1 a.m. GMT, a US Vela satellite passing over the South Atlantic detected a double flash of light in the vicinity of Prince Edward Island.

    2010 May, Norman Dombey, “Double Flash”, in London Review of Books (blog), London: LRB Limited

    One of the sensors on satellites in the U.S. Nuclear Detonation System uses a relatively simple device to detect the “double flash” of a nuclear detonation anywhere on earth.

    2015 July, Eileen Patterson, “The Double Flash Meets the Bhangmeter”, in Clay Dillingham, editor, National Security Science, Los Alamos National Laboratory, archived from the original on 01 Nov 2020, page 12
  2. engineeringA system using two flash separators to separate phases of a working fluid.

    Dipippo, in 2008, reported that the double-flash plant increased power output by 15-25% compared to a single flash plant under the same geothermal fluid conditions [9, 10].

    2018, A Rachmat, Nasruddin, A S Wibowo, A Surachman, “Exergoeconomic analysis and optimization of a combined double flash–binary cycle for Ulubelu geothermal power plant in Indonesia”, in IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, volume 105 (PDF), IOP Publishing Ltd, →DOI, →ISSN

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

double flash. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/double%20flash

MLA

“double flash.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/double%20flash. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “double flash,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/double%20flash.

Source: double flash on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.