When Lawrence began to pester Oppenheimer with questions about what he was thinking at the time of the explosion, the creator of the atomic bomb looked gloomily at the journalist and quoted him lines from the sacred Indian book "Bhagavad Gita":
If the shine of a thousand suns [mountains]
It will flash in the sky at once,
Man will become Death
A threat to the Earth.
That same day, at dinner, amid the painful silence of his colleagues, Kistyakovsky said:
I am sure that before the end of the world, in the last millisecond of the Earth’s existence, the last person will see the same thing that we saw today.” Ovchinnikov V.V. Hot ash. - M.: Pravda, 1987, pp. 103-105.
“On the evening of July 16, 1945, just before the opening of the Potsdam Conference, Truman was delivered a dispatch that, even after deciphering, read like a doctor’s report : “The operation was performed this morning. The diagnosis is still incomplete, but the results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations. Dr. Groves is pleased.” Ovchinnikov V.V. Hot ash. - M.: Pravda, 1987, p.108.
On this topic:
On July 9, 1972, an underground nuclear explosion was set off in the densely populated Kharkov region to extinguish a burning gas drilling well. Today, only a few know that a nuclear explosion was carried out near Kharkov. Its explosion power was only three times less than that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
On September 22, 2001, the United States tightened sanctions against India and Pakistan, imposed in 1998 after these countries tested nuclear weapons. In 2002, these countries found themselves on the brink of nuclear war.
On April 1, 2009, the world welcomed the statement of the Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States of America, Barack Obama commitment to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons and implementation of obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to further reduce and limit strategic offensive weapons.
September 26 is the Day of the Struggle for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The only absolute guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used is their complete elimination. This was stated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the occasion of the International Day for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, which is celebrated on September 26.
“Convinced that nuclear disarmament and the total elimination of nuclear weapons are the only absolute guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons,” the General Assembly proclaimed 26 September as the “International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” which is intended to promote the implementation of the total elimination of nuclear weapons. weapons by mobilizing international efforts. First proposed in October 2013 in resolution (A/RES/68/32), it resulted from the Summit on Nuclear Disarmament held in the UN General Assembly on 26 September 2013. The International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was celebrated for the first time in
In December 1946, the first experimental nuclear reactor was launched in the USSR, the operation of which required 45 tons of uranium. To launch the industrial reactor required to produce plutonium, another 150 tons of uranium were needed, which were accumulated only by the beginning of 1948.
Test launches of the reactor began on June 8, 1948 near Chelyabinsk, but at the end of the year a serious accident occurred, due to which the reactor was shut down for 2 months. At the same time, the reactor was manually disassembled and reassembled, during which thousands of people were irradiated, including members of the management of the Soviet nuclear project Igor Kurchatov and Abraham Zavenyagin who participated in the liquidation of the accident. The 10 kilograms of plutonium needed to make an atomic bomb were obtained in the USSR by mid-1949.
The test of the first domestic atomic bomb RDS-1 was carried out on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site. In place of the bomb tower, a crater with a diameter of 3 meters and a depth of 1.5 meters, covered with melted sand, was formed. After the explosion, people were allowed to stay 2 kilometers from the epicenter for no more than 15 minutes due to the high level of radiation.
25 meters from the tower there was a building made of reinforced concrete structures, with an overhead crane in the hall for installing a plutonium charge. The structure partially collapsed, but the structure itself survived. Of the 1,538 experimental animals, 345 died in the explosion; some of the animals imitated soldiers in the trenches.
The T-34 tank and field artillery were slightly damaged within a radius of 500-550 meters from the epicenter, and at a range of up to 1,500 meters all types of aircraft received significant damage. At a distance of a kilometer from the epicenter and then every 500 meters, 10 Pobeda passenger cars were installed, and all 10 cars burned out.
At a distance of 800 meters, two residential 3-storey buildings, built 20 meters from each other, so that the first shielded the second, were completely destroyed, residential panel and log houses of urban type were completely destroyed within a radius of 5 kilometers. Most of the damage was caused by the shock wave. The railway and highway bridges, located 1,000 and 1,500 meters respectively, were twisted and thrown 20-30 meters from their place.
The carriages and vehicles located on the bridges, half-burnt, were scattered across the steppe at a distance of 50-80 meters from the installation site. Tanks and guns were overturned and mangled, and animals were carried away. The tests were considered successful.
The leaders of the work, Lavrentiy Beria and Igor Kurchatov, were awarded the titles of Honorary Citizen of the USSR. A number of scientists who participated in the project - Kurchatov, Flerov, Khariton, Khlopin, Shchelkin, Zeldovich, Bochvar, as well as Nikolaus Riehl, became Heroes of Socialist Labor.
All of them were awarded Stalin Prizes, and also received dachas near Moscow and Pobeda cars, and Kurchatov received a ZIS car. The title of Hero of Socialist Labor was also given to one of the leaders of the Soviet defense industry, Boris Vannikov, his deputy Pervukhin, Deputy Minister Zavenyagin, as well as 7 more generals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who led nuclear facilities. The project leader, Beria, was awarded the Order of Lenin.
In the Soviet Union, already since 1918, research on nuclear physics was carried out, preparing the test of the first atomic bomb in the USSR. In Leningrad, at the Radium Institute, in 1937, a cyclotron was launched, the first in Europe. "In what year was the first atomic bomb test in the USSR?" - you ask. You will find out the answer very soon.
In 1938, on November 25, a commission on the atomic nucleus was created by decree of the Academy of Sciences. It included Sergei Vavilov, Abram Alikhanov, Abram Iofe, and others. They were joined two years later by Isai Gurevich and Vitaly Khlopin. By that time, nuclear research had already been carried out in more than 10 scientific institutes. In the same year, the USSR Academy of Sciences established the Commission on Heavy Water, which later became known as the Commission on Isotopes. After reading this article, you will learn how further preparation and testing of the first atomic bomb was carried out in the USSR.
Construction of a cyclotron in Leningrad, discovery of new uranium ores
In September 1939, construction of a cyclotron began in Leningrad. In April 1940, it was decided to create a pilot plant that would produce 15 kg of heavy water per year. However, due to the war that began at that time, these plans were not implemented. In May of the same year, Yu. Khariton, Ya. Zeldovich, N. Semenov proposed their theory of the development of a nuclear chain reaction in uranium. At the same time, work began to discover new uranium ores. These were the first steps that led to the creation and testing of an atomic bomb in the USSR several years later.
Physicists' idea of a future atomic bomb
Many physicists in the period from the late 30s to the early 40s already had a rough idea of what it would look like. The idea was to concentrate quickly enough in one place a certain amount (more than a critical mass) of material fissile under the influence of neutrons. After this, an avalanche-like increase in the number of atomic decays should begin in it. That is, it will be a chain reaction, as a result of which a huge charge of energy will be released and a powerful explosion will occur.
Problems encountered in creating the atomic bomb
The first problem was to obtain fissile material in sufficient volume. In nature, the only substance of this kind that could be found is an isotope of uranium with a mass number of 235 (that is, the total number of neutrons and protons in the nucleus), otherwise uranium-235. The content of this isotope in natural uranium is no more than 0.71% (uranium-238 - 99.2%). Moreover, the content of natural substances in the ore is at best 1%. Therefore, the isolation of uranium-235 was a rather difficult task.
As it soon became clear, an alternative to uranium is plutonium-239. It is almost never found in nature (it is 100 times less abundant than uranium-235). It can be obtained in acceptable concentrations in nuclear reactors by irradiating uranium-238 with neutrons. Building a reactor for this also presented significant difficulties.
The third problem was that it was not easy to collect the required amount of fissile material in one place. In the process of bringing subcritical parts closer together, even very quickly, fission reactions begin to occur in them. The energy released in this case may not allow the bulk of the atoms to participate in the fission process. Without having time to react, they will fly apart.
Invention of V. Maslov and V. Spinel
V. Maslov and V. Spinel from the Physico-Technical Institute of Kharkov in 1940 applied for the invention of ammunition based on the use of a chain reaction that triggers the spontaneous fission of uranium-235, its supercritical mass, which is created from several subcritical ones, separated by an explosive, impenetrable for neutrons and destroyed by explosion. The operability of such a charge raises great doubts, but nevertheless, a certificate for this invention was nevertheless obtained. However, this happened only in 1946.
American cannon scheme
For the first bombs, the Americans intended to use a cannon design, which used a real cannon barrel. With its help, one part of the fissile material (subcritical) was shot into another. But it was soon discovered that such a scheme was not suitable for plutonium due to the fact that the approach speed was insufficient.
Construction of a cyclotron in Moscow
In 1941, on April 15, the Council of People's Commissars decided to begin construction of a powerful cyclotron in Moscow. However, after the Great Patriotic War began, almost all work in the field of nuclear physics, designed to bring closer the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR, was stopped. Many nuclear physicists found themselves at the front. Others were reoriented to more pressing areas, as it seemed then.
Gathering information about the nuclear issue
Since 1939, the 1st Directorate of the NKVD and the GRU of the Red Army have been collecting information regarding the nuclear problem. In 1940, in October, the first message was received from D. Cairncross, which spoke of plans to create an atomic bomb. This issue was considered by the British Science Committee, on which Cairncross worked. In the summer of 1941, a bomb project called “Tube Alloys” was approved. At the beginning of the war, England was one of the world leaders in nuclear development. This situation arose largely thanks to the help of German scientists who fled to this country when Hitler came to power.
K. Fuchs, a member of the KKE, was one of them. He went in the fall of 1941 to the Soviet embassy, where he reported that he had important information about powerful weapons created in England. S. Kramer and R. Kuchinskaya (radio operator Sonya) were assigned to communicate with him. The first radiograms sent to Moscow contained information about a special method for separating uranium isotopes, gas diffusion, as well as about a plant being built for this purpose in Wales. After six transmissions, communication with Fuchs was lost.
The test of the atomic bomb in the USSR, the date of which is widely known today, was also prepared by other intelligence officers. Thus, in the United States, Semenov (Twain) at the end of 1943 reported that E. Fermi in Chicago managed to carry out the first chain reaction. The source of this information was the physicist Pontecorvo. At the same time, through foreign intelligence, closed works of Western scientists concerning atomic energy, dated 1940-1942, were received from England. The information contained in them confirmed that great progress had been made in creating the atomic bomb.
The wife of Konenkov (pictured below), a famous sculptor, worked with others on reconnaissance. She became close to Einstein and Oppenheimer, the greatest physicists, and influenced them for a long time. L. Zarubina, another resident in the USA, was part of the circle of people of Oppenheimer and L. Szilard. With the help of these women, the USSR managed to introduce agents into Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and the Chicago Laboratory - the largest nuclear research centers in America. Information on the atomic bomb in the United States was transmitted to Soviet intelligence in 1944 by the Rosenbergs, D. Greenglass, B. Pontecorvo, S. Sake, T. Hall, and K. Fuchs.
In 1944, at the beginning of February, L. Beria, People's Commissar of the NKVD, held a meeting of intelligence leaders. At it, a decision was made to coordinate the collection of information related to the atomic problem, which came through the GRU of the Red Army and the NKVD. For this purpose, department “C” was created. In 1945, on September 27, it was organized. P. Sudoplatov, GB Commissioner, headed this department.
Fuchs transmitted in January 1945 a description of the design of the atomic bomb. Intelligence, among other things, also obtained materials on the separation of uranium isotopes by electromagnetic methods, data on the operation of the first reactors, instructions for the production of plutonium and uranium bombs, data on the size of the critical mass of plutonium and uranium, on the design of explosive lenses, on plutonium-240, on the sequence and the timing of bomb assembly and production operations. The information also concerned the method of setting the bomb initiator into action and the construction of special plants for isotope separation. Diary entries were also obtained, which contained information about the first test explosion of a bomb in the United States in July 1945.
The information received through these channels accelerated and facilitated the task assigned to Soviet scientists. Western experts believed that the USSR could create a bomb only in 1954-1955. However, they were wrong. The first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR took place in 1949, in August.
New stages in the creation of the atomic bomb
In April 1942, M. Pervukhin, People's Commissar of the Chemical Industry, was acquainted, by order of Stalin, with materials relating to the work on the atomic bomb carried out abroad. To evaluate the information presented in the report, Pervukhin proposed creating a group of specialists. It included, on the recommendation of Ioffe, young scientists Kikoin, Alikhanov and Kurchatov.
In 1942, on November 27, the GKO decree “On Uranium Mining” was issued. It provided for the creation of a special institute, as well as the start of work on the processing and extraction of raw materials, and geological exploration. All this was supposed to be carried out so that the first atomic bomb was tested in the USSR as soon as possible. The year 1943 was marked by the fact that NKCM began mining and processing uranium ore in Tajikistan, at the Tabarsh mine. The plan was 4 tons of uranium salts per year.
The previously mobilized scientists were recalled from the front at this time. In the same year, 1943, on February 11, Laboratory No. 2 of the Academy of Sciences was organized. Kurchatov was appointed its head. She was supposed to coordinate the work on creating an atomic bomb.
In 1944, Soviet intelligence received a reference book that contained valuable information about the availability of uranium-graphite reactors and the determination of reactor parameters. However, the uranium needed to load even a small experimental nuclear reactor was not yet available in our country. In 1944, on September 28, the USSR government obliged NKCM to hand over uranium salts and uranium to the state fund. Laboratory No. 2 was entrusted with the task of storing them.
Works carried out in Bulgaria
A large group of specialists, led by V. Kravchenko, head of the 4th special department of the NKVD, in November 1944, went to study the results of geological exploration in liberated Bulgaria. In the same year, on December 8, the State Defense Committee decided to transfer the processing and extraction of uranium ores from the NKMC to the 9th Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Main State MP of the NKVD. In March 1945, S. Egorov was appointed head of the mining and metallurgical department of the 9th Directorate. At the same time, in January, NII-9 was organized to study uranium deposits, solve problems of obtaining plutonium and metallic uranium, and processing raw materials. By that time, about one and a half tons of uranium ore were arriving from Bulgaria per week.
Construction of a diffusion plant
Since 1945, in March, after information was received from the United States through the NKGB about a bomb design built on the principle of implosion (that is, compression of fissile material by exploding a conventional explosive), work began on a design that had significant advantages over a cannon one. In April 1945, V. Makhanev wrote a note to Beria. It said that in 1947 it was planned to launch a diffusion plant located at Laboratory No. 2 to produce uranium-235. The productivity of this plant was supposed to be approximately 25 kg of uranium per year. This should have been enough for two bombs. The American one actually needed 65 kg of uranium-235.
Involving German scientists in research
On May 5, 1945, during the battle for Berlin, property belonging to the Society's Physics Institute was discovered. On May 9, a special commission headed by A. Zavenyagin was sent to Germany. Her task was to find the scientists who worked there on the atomic bomb and to collect materials on the uranium problem. A significant group of German scientists were taken to the USSR together with their families. These included Nobel laureates N. Riehl and G. Hertz, professors Geib, M. von Ardene, P. Thyssen, G. Pose, M. Volmer, R. Deppel and others.
The creation of the atomic bomb is delayed
To produce plutonium-239, it was necessary to build a nuclear reactor. Even for the experimental one, about 36 tons of uranium metal, 500 tons of graphite and 9 tons of uranium dioxide were needed. By August 1943, the graphite problem was solved. Its production began in May 1944 at the Moscow Electrode Plant. However, the country did not have the required amount of uranium by the end of 1945.
Stalin wanted the first atomic bomb to be tested in the USSR as soon as possible. The year by which it was supposed to be realized was initially 1948 (until spring). However, by this time there were not even materials for its production. A new deadline was set on February 8, 1945 by government decree. The creation of the atomic bomb was postponed until March 1, 1949.
The final stages that prepared the test of the first atomic bomb in the USSR
The event, which had been sought for so long, occurred somewhat later than the re-scheduled date. The first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR took place in 1949, as planned, but not in March, but in August.
In 1948, on June 19, the first industrial reactor ("A") was launched. Plant "B" was built to separate produced plutonium from nuclear fuel. Irradiated uranium blocks were dissolved and plutonium was separated from uranium by chemical methods. Then the solution was further purified from fission products in order to reduce its radiation activity. In April 1949, Plant B began producing bomb parts from plutonium using NII-9 technology. The first research reactor operating on heavy water was launched at the same time. The development of production proceeded with numerous accidents. When eliminating their consequences, cases of overexposure of personnel were observed. However, at that time they did not pay attention to such trifles. The most important thing was to carry out the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR (its date was 1949, August 29).
In July, a set of charge parts was ready. A group of physicists, led by Flerov, went to the plant to carry out physical measurements. A group of theorists, led by Zeldovich, was sent to process the measurement results, as well as calculate the probability of incomplete rupture and efficiency values.
Thus, the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR was carried out in 1949. On August 5, the commission accepted a charge of plutonium and sent it to KB-11 by letter train. By this time the necessary work was almost completed. The control assembly of the charge was carried out in KB-11 on the night of August 10-11. The device was then dismantled, and its parts were packed for shipment to the landfill. As already mentioned, the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR took place on August 29. The Soviet bomb was thus created in 2 years and 8 months.
Testing of the first atomic bomb
In the USSR in 1949, on August 29, a nuclear charge was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. There was a device on the tower. The power of the explosion was 22 kt. The design of the charge used was the same as the “Fat Man” from the USA, and the electronic filling was developed by Soviet scientists. The multilayer structure was represented by an atomic charge. In it, using compression by a spherical converging detonation wave, plutonium was transferred to a critical state.
Some features of the first atomic bomb
5 kg of plutonium was placed in the center of the charge. The substance was established in the form of two hemispheres surrounded by a shell of uranium-238. It served to contain the core, which inflated during the chain reaction, so that as much of the plutonium as possible could react. In addition, it was used as a reflector and also a neutron moderator. The tamper was surrounded by a shell made of aluminum. It served to uniformly compress the nuclear charge by the shock wave.
For safety reasons, the installation of the unit that contained fissile material was carried out immediately before using the charge. For this purpose, there was a special through conical hole, closed with an explosive plug. And in the inner and outer cases there were holes that were closed with lids. The fission of approximately 1 kg of plutonium nuclei was responsible for the power of the explosion. The remaining 4 kg did not have time to react and were sprayed uselessly when the first test of an atomic bomb was carried out in the USSR, the date of which you now know. Many new ideas for improving charges arose during the implementation of this program. They concerned, in particular, increasing the material utilization rate, as well as reducing weight and dimensions. Compared to the first ones, the new models have become more compact, more powerful and more elegant.
So, the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR took place in 1949, on August 29. It served as the beginning of further developments in this area, which continue to this day. The testing of the atomic bomb in the USSR (1949) became an important event in the history of our country, marking the beginning of its status as a nuclear power.
In 1953, at the same Semipalatinsk test site, the first test in the history of Russia took place. Its power was already 400 kt. Compare the first tests in the USSR of an atomic bomb and a hydrogen bomb: power 22 kt and 400 kt. However, this was just the beginning.
On September 14, 1954, the first military exercises were carried out, during which an atomic bomb was used. They were called "Operation Snowball". The testing of an atomic bomb in 1954 in the USSR, according to information declassified in 1993, was carried out, among other things, with the aim of finding out how radiation affects humans. The participants in this experiment signed an agreement that they would not disclose information about the exposure for 25 years.
On July 29, 1985, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev announced the decision of the USSR to unilaterally stop any nuclear explosions before January 1, 1986. We decided to talk about five famous nuclear test sites that existed in the USSR.
Semipalatinsk test site
The Semipalatinsk Test Site is one of the largest nuclear test sites in the USSR. It also came to be known as SITP. The test site is located in Kazakhstan, 130 km northwest of Semipalatinsk, on the left bank of the Irtysh River. The landfill area is 18,500 sq km. On its territory is the previously closed city of Kurchatov. The Semipalatinsk test site is famous for the fact that the first nuclear weapons test in the Soviet Union was conducted here. The test was carried out on August 29, 1949. The bomb's yield was 22 kilotons.
On August 12, 1953, the RDS-6s thermonuclear charge with a yield of 400 kilotons was tested at the test site. The charge was placed on a tower 30 m above the ground. As a result of this test, part of the test site was very heavily contaminated with radioactive products of the explosion, and a small background remains in some places to this day. On November 22, 1955, the RDS-37 thermonuclear bomb was tested over the test site. It was dropped by an airplane at an altitude of about 2 km. On October 11, 1961, the first underground nuclear explosion in the USSR was carried out at the test site. From 1949 to 1989, at least 468 nuclear tests were carried out at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, including 125 atmospheric and 343 underground nuclear test explosions.
Nuclear tests have not been carried out at the test site since 1989.
Test site on Novaya Zemlya
The test site on Novaya Zemlya was opened in 1954. Unlike the Semipalatinsk test site, it was removed from populated areas. The nearest large settlement - the village of Amderma - was located 300 km from the test site, Arkhangelsk - more than 1000 km, Murmansk - more than 900 km.
From 1955 to 1990, 135 nuclear explosions were carried out at the test site: 87 in the atmosphere, 3 underwater and 42 underground. In 1961, the most powerful hydrogen bomb in human history, the 58-megaton Tsar Bomba, also known as Kuzka’s Mother, was exploded on Novaya Zemlya.
In August 1963, the USSR and the USA signed a treaty banning nuclear tests in three environments: in the atmosphere, outer space and under water. Limitations were also adopted on the power of the charges. Underground explosions continued to occur until 1990.
Totsky training ground
The Totsky training ground is located in the Volga-Ural Military District, 40 km east of the city of Buzuluk. In 1954, tactical military exercises under the code name “Snowball” were held here. The exercise was led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov. The purpose of the exercise was to test the capabilities of breaking through enemy defenses using nuclear weapons. Materials related to these exercises have not yet been declassified.
During an exercise on September 14, 1954, a Tu-4 bomber dropped an RDS-2 nuclear bomb with a yield of 38 kilotons of TNT from an altitude of 8 km. The explosion was carried out at an altitude of 350 m. 600 tanks, 600 armored personnel carriers and 320 aircraft were sent to attack the contaminated territory. The total number of military personnel who took part in the exercises was about 45 thousand people. As a result of the exercise, thousands of its participants received varying doses of radioactive radiation. Participants in the exercises were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which resulted in the victims being unable to tell doctors about the causes of their illnesses and receive adequate treatment.
Kapustin Yar
The Kapustin Yar training ground is located in the northwestern part of the Astrakhan region. The test site was created on May 13, 1946 to test the first Soviet ballistic missiles.
Since the 1950s, at least 11 nuclear explosions have been carried out at the Kapustin Yar test site at altitudes ranging from 300 m to 5.5 km, the total yield of which is approximately 65 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. On January 19, 1957, a Type 215 anti-aircraft guided missile was tested at the test site. It had a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead, designed to combat the main US nuclear strike force - strategic aviation. The missile exploded at an altitude of about 10 km, hitting the target aircraft - two Il-28 bombers controlled by radio control. This was the first high air nuclear explosion in the USSR.
Since the first nuclear test on July 15, 1945, more than 2,051 other nuclear weapons tests have been recorded around the world.
No other force represents such absolute destruction as nuclear weapons. And this type of weapon quickly becomes even more powerful over the decades after the first test.
The nuclear bomb test in 1945 had a yield of 20 kilotons, meaning the bomb had an explosive force of 20,000 tons of TNT. Over the course of 20 years, the United States and the USSR tested nuclear weapons with a total mass of more than 10 megatons, or 10 million tons of TNT. For scale, this is at least 500 times stronger than the first atomic bomb. To bring the size of the largest nuclear explosions in history to scale, the data was derived using Alex Wellerstein's Nukemap, a tool for visualizing the horrific effects of a nuclear explosion in the real world.
In the maps shown, the first explosion ring is a fireball, followed by a radiation radius. The pink radius displays almost all building destruction and 100% fatalities. In the gray radius, stronger buildings will withstand the explosion. In the orange radius, people will suffer third-degree burns and flammable materials will ignite, leading to possible firestorms.
The largest nuclear explosions
Soviet tests 158 and 168
On August 25 and September 19, 1962, less than a month apart, the USSR conducted nuclear tests over the Novaya Zemlya region of Russia, an archipelago in northern Russia near the Arctic Ocean.
No videos or photographs of the tests remain, but both tests involved the use of 10-megaton atomic bombs. These explosions would have burned everything within 1.77 square miles at ground zero, causing third-degree burns to victims in an area of 1,090 square miles.
Ivy Mike
On November 1, 1952, the United States conducted an Ivy Mike test over the Marshall Islands. Ivy Mike was the world's first hydrogen bomb and had a yield of 10.4 megatons, 700 times more powerful than the first atomic bomb.
Ivy Mike's explosion was so powerful that it vaporized the island of Elugelab where it was blown up, leaving a 164-foot deep crater in its place.
Castle Romeo
Romeo was the second nuclear explosion in a series of tests carried out by the United States in 1954. All explosions took place at Bikini Atoll. Romeo was the third most powerful test of the series and had a yield of approximately 11 megatons.
Romeo was the first to be tested on a barge in open waters rather than on a reef, as the US was quickly running out of islands on which to test nuclear weapons. The explosion will burn everything within 1.91 square miles.
Soviet Test 123
On October 23, 1961, the Soviet Union conducted nuclear test No. 123 over Novaya Zemlya. Test 123 was a 12.5 megaton nuclear bomb. A bomb this size would burn everything within 2.11 square miles, causing third-degree burns to people over an area of 1,309 square miles. This test also left no records.
Castle Yankee
Castle Yankee, the second most powerful of the series of tests, was conducted on May 4, 1954. The bomb had a yield of 13.5 megatons. Four days later, its radioactive fallout reached Mexico City, a distance of about 7,100 miles.
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was carried out on February 28, 1954, was the first of a series of Castle tests and the largest US nuclear explosion of all time.
Bravo was originally intended to be a 6-megaton explosion. Instead, the bomb produced a 15-megaton explosion. His mushroom reached 114,000 feet in the air.
The US military's miscalculation resulted in the radiation exposure of approximately 665 Marshallese residents and the death from radiation exposure of a Japanese fisherman who was 80 miles from the explosion site.
Soviet tests 173, 174 and 147
From August 5 to September 27, 1962, the USSR conducted a series of nuclear tests over Novaya Zemlya. Test 173, 174, 147 and all stand out as the fifth, fourth, and third strongest nuclear explosions in history.
All three explosions produced had a power of 20 Megatons, or about 1000 times stronger than the Trinity nuclear bomb. A bomb of this strength would destroy everything within three square miles in its path.
Test 219, Soviet Union
On December 24, 1962, the USSR conducted test No. 219, with a yield of 24.2 megatons, over Novaya Zemlya. A bomb of this strength can burn everything within 3.58 square miles, causing third-degree burns in an area of up to 2,250 square miles.
Tsar bomb
On October 30, 1961, the USSR detonated the largest nuclear weapon ever tested and created the largest man-made explosion in history. The result was an explosion 3,000 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The flash of light from the explosion was visible 620 miles away.
The Tsar Bomba ultimately had a yield of between 50 and 58 megatons, twice the size of the second largest nuclear explosion.
A bomb of this size would create a fireball measuring 6.4 square miles and would be capable of causing third degree burns within 4,080 square miles of the bomb's epicenter.
First atomic bomb
The first atomic explosion was the size of the Tsar Bomb, and to this day the explosion is considered to be of an almost unimaginable size.
According to NukeMap, this 20-kiloton weapon produces a fireball with a radius of 260 m, approximately 5 football fields. Damage estimates indicate that the bomb would deliver lethal radiation 7 miles wide and produce third-degree burns over 12 miles. If such a bomb were used in lower Manhattan, more than 150,000 people would be killed and the fallout would extend into central Connecticut, according to NukeMap calculations.
The first atomic bomb was tiny by nuclear weapons standards. But its destructiveness is still very great for perception.