The world's most powerful thermonuclear bombs
The Soviet Union and the United States once built thermonuclear warheads with the power equivalent to thousands of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima.
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North Korea's sixth and most powerful nuclear test. Click image for details. |
North Korea announced on September 3 that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb with an explosive yield of about 50-60 kilotons, equivalent to five Hiroshima bombs. However, this test is still far behind the largest hydrogen bomb explosions ever conducted in history, according to Army Technology.
Tsar Bomba (RDS-220)
The Soviet Union's RDS-220 thermonuclear bomb, nicknamed the "Tsar Bomba" by the West, was the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested in history. Its terrifying power ended the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Four nuclear physicists, Victor Adamskii, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Smirnov and Yuri Trutnev, were tasked with designing and building a three-stage thermonuclear bomb of the Teller-Ulam design in just 15 weeks, starting in July 1961. According to the original design, Tsar Bomba had an explosive force equivalent to 100 million tons of TNT, or 6,600 Hiroshima bombs. However, the team decided to reduce its explosive power by half to ensure safety.
At 11:30 a.m. on October 30, 1961, the bomb was dropped from a Tu-95V bomber at an altitude of 10,500 meters and slowed by parachute to give the plane enough time to escape the blast zone. Just 188 seconds later, the Tsar Bomba exploded at an altitude of 4,200 meters. The bomb had a destructive power ofactually reached 57 million tons of TNT, althoughIts designers estimated its explosive power to be only about 51.5 megatons of TNT.
The Tsar Bomba test in 1961.
The fireball created by the Tsar Bomba was 4.6 km in diameter and could be seen from 1,000 km away. The mushroom clouddiameter 95 kmreached an altitude of 70 km. Within an hour of the explosion, radio signals were jammed for hundreds of kilometers due to atmospheric ionization.
The shockwave from the explosion circled the Earth three times. The shockwave shattered windows and caused a loud bang on Dickson Island, about 800 kilometers from the test site. The blast was capable of causing third-degree burns up to 100 kilometers away.
B41 nuclear bomb
The B41, also known by the code name Mk-41, is the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever put into service by the United States. The country built a total of 500 B41s between 1960 and 1962 and they remained in service until July 1976.
Development of the Mk-41 began in 1955 in response to a request for a powerful thermonuclear bomb weighing nearly 5 tons for the US Air Force. The first B41 prototype was tested during the first phase of Operation Hardtack in 1958. The yield of the B41 was estimated at 25 megatons of TNT, but the bomb was never detonated in practice.
The B41 uses a three-stage Teller-Ulam design with deuterium-tritium as the primary fusion fuel. Some scientists believe that this bomb also uses 95% enriched Lithium-6 deuteride fuel for nuclear fusion.
The US built two variants of the B41 bomb, a "clean" version that used lead in the third stage and a "dirty" version that used uranium instead of lead. Both were dropped from strategic bombers, equipped with two arresting parachutes to give the aircraft time to escape the explosion.
TX-21 'Shrimp'
The TX-21 "Shrimp" bomb was detonated by the US on March 1, 1954, during the Castle Bravo test, which took place on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. With an explosive force equivalent to 14.8 million tons of TNT, this was the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated by the US.
Castle Bravo test.
The TX-21 bomb used 37-40% enriched Lithium-6 deuteride as a thermonuclear fuel in a natural uranium containment case. Its explosive yield of 14.8 megatons of TNT was nearly three times higher than the manufacturer's estimate of 5 megatons of TNT. The cause was a design error at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The explosion's power far exceeded expectations, scattering radioactive fallout over an area of 11,000 square kilometers east of Bikini Island before spreading around the world. Bikini's residents were evacuated three days later, leaving many severely exposed to radiation. Twenty-three crew members of the nearby Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryu Maru were also exposed to radiation. The aftermath of the Castle Bravo test sparked protests around the world, particularly against atmospheric nuclear bomb testing.
Mk-17/Mk-24
The Mk-17/24 bomb weighs 21 tons and is the heaviest thermonuclear bomb ever built by the US. It is also the first thermonuclear bomb to be mass-produced and deployed to the US Air Force, with an estimated power equivalent to 10-15 million tons of TNT.
The US built about 200 Mk-17s and 105 Mk-24s before 1955, which were retired two years later. The only difference between the two versions was the materials used to make the primary stage, which was also a fission bomb. The Mk-17/24 was equipped for B-36 strategic bombers, each equipped with a 20 m diameter braking parachute to allow the aircraft to escape.
On May 27, 1957, a Mk-17 was accidentally released from the bomb bay of a B-36 aircraft south of Kirtland Air Force Base, USA. The bomb fell through the bomb bay door at an altitude of 520 m. The explosive charge in the primary stage was detonated when it hit the ground, creating a crater 3.7 m deep and 7.6 m in diameter. A nuclear reaction did not occur because the plutonium detonator core was removed, but radioactive material was spread over an area of 1.5 km.
Ivy Mike
Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952, becoming the first thermonuclear bomb tested by the US. This bomb had a destructive force equivalent to 10.4 million tons of TNT, 700 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Ivy Mike Bombing.
The Ivy Mike bomb was 6 meters long, 2 meters in diameter and weighed 82 tons. It was not intended for practical deployment, but was intended only to test and evaluate the concepts of American nuclear bombs at that time. A simpler and lighter version of Ivy Mike, called the EC-16, was later developed.
According to VNE
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