"Blast awesomeness" in debug menu

[Gaarst]

So I was going through the painful process of testing an install with different sets of mods to try to find the origin of a bug, and while monitoring a flight with the debug menu I saw this during reentry:

This is the first time I actually notice that "blast awesomeness" thing in the debug menu, and besides making me laugh (well done Squad), that made me wonder what does this value actually correspond to.

I did some quick investigation with another rocket (ie: blew it up with the launchpad for science) and realised there are different values for different part, but they do not seem very logical/intuitive:

• While it does seem to depend on parts, it does not depend on the part's size or mass as I would have imagined, larger parts do no have a larger awesomeness
  
• Some parts have 0 blast awesomeness, other 0.1 or 0.5, and I have yet to see values >0.5
  

I assume that this value defines what type or how big the explosion is but I don't really get how this actually works. I don't recall seeing it on the forums recently, so if anyone knows, I'll be happy to hear that explanation !

PS: it's these little things that make me love KSP

[Javster]

My best guess would be that it's related to whether parts go *poof* or *bang*, with accompanying visual effect. Could be decided by speed too though.

[klesh]

IIRC, solars go *poof*, right?

[Gaarst]

Well, not these ones.

Maybe it was because of overheating but they did go *boom*

[Bloody_looser]

Going *boom* or poof* depends on explosionPotential parameter in parts config.

[Guest]

I remember finding that. I think it has to do with the blast radius/intensity. Like comparing an orange tank to a control surface.