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My guess? As the shock wave travels up, it compresses the air it passes through causing water vapor to condense into clouds. There could be any number of rings depending upon the moisture content of the particular layers of air/moisture.
To put it another way, the atmosphere is not evenly moist. Rings appear where it is most moist. None where it is dry.
They are called "condensation clouds" or "Wilson clouds". Pagosan is essentially correct, but it is actually the expansion of air which causes the condensation. (The first half of the shock wave causes compression, the second half causes expansion, or "rarefaction".)
Also note that the explosion actually occurs in the air, not on the ground. As it rises, it creates a vacuum which pulls up the dirt and debris on the surface. You can see a separation between the explosion and the ground debris about 7-10 seconds into the clip.
Great video but I dont like how the house of bricks was really a wall of bricks.
I noticed that too. Plus the bricks were loose. The experiment was sort of a take-off on the three pigs. Straw, wood and bricks. I also noticed that both the "house" of straw and the "house" of wood only had 3 sides. I posted it just to show how a shock wave can create a vapor ring. The same idea applies to the tsar bomba, although on a much larger scale.
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