How Powerful Godzilla’s Atomic Breath Is Confirmed

Warning! Spoilers for Godzilla vs. Kong below.

Godzilla is known for his atomic breath and Godzilla vs. Kong finally confirmed just how powerful it is. The opening credits for the MonsterVerse movie included various statistics and facts on each titan. An official Godzilla guidebook previously stated that his atomic breath has the temperature of 500,000 degrees Celsius — but what’s the power behind that heat?

Godzilla vs. Kong kicks off with King Kong’s journey to his new permanent home. While his protectors race to safely get him to his true home, they find themselves in the path of an angry Godzilla. The run-in reignites an ancient Titan war between the two alphas. As the two battle to be the last titan standing, they wreak havoc across the globe.

The movie never declares a true winner in the sense that one monster lives and one dies. They go at it for multiple rounds and Godzilla beats Kong in nearly every fight — he would’ve killed the primate if they didn’t end up teaming up to take down Mechagodzilla in Godzilla vs. Kong‘s ending. His atomic breath, which has an energy yield of 3.15 x 1014 joules [10 to the 14th power], is likely the reason that Godzilla technically won. That atomic breath also helped them take down Mechagodzilla, making it Godzilla’s greatest asset.

A joule is the scientific unit for work, energy, or heat. According to Vocabulary.com, one joule equals the work it takes to make a watt of power for one second. An easy example to demonstrate the power of a joule is lifting an apple, since that weighs about one Newton. If the apple is raised one meter in the air, that uses about one joule of work. So taking into account that Godzilla’s atomic breath has an energy yield of 3.15 x 1014 joules [10 to the 14th power], this shows that the titan is capable of generating an immense amount of power. Given the heat behind that power, Godzilla is virtually unstoppable.

Kong’s sheer brute strength is undeniable, but he never stood a chance against the power of Godzilla’s atomic breath. In Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla uses his breath to singe parts of Kong’s body. Those injuries significantly diminished Kong’s strength, showing how easily Godzilla could have taken him out. But instead, he decided to team up with Kong and use that atomic breath to take out Mechagodzilla. In Godzilla vs. Kong, Kong is portrayed as more emotionally complex than Godzilla. But Godzilla’s decision to use his atomic breath to fight alongside Kong rather than kill him shows there’s more to him than meets the eye. It’s a topic that’s worth exploring in a potential Godzilla vs. Kong 2.

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