The Nuke in Avengers

In the Avengers movie the nuke sent in to destroy the chitauri, which until really thinking about it I didn't think it would work. But after thinking about it I came to realize certain things(I'm taking this from the movies).

• Loki is just a frost giant which, since I'm going by the movies, does not seem like he could survive the nuke.


• The Chitauri seems like they would die initially and I have no idea what the fallout could do to them.


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  Also I'm not exactly sure where it would have detonated but, I think that in the end the nuke still would have hit some if not all of the Chitauri chilling in space. I say this because in the movie when it actually exploded in space it would have hit the city if not closed when it did.

  
  


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  The only Avengers to survive are likely Hulk and Thor but that's me being optimistic

  
  

So I'm wondering, would the nuke have actually "worked"? And by worked I mean have stopped the invasion? If not why?