Tsar Bomba

Tsar Bomba (Russian: ????-?????, meaning literally "Emperor Bomb"), developed by the Soviet Union, is the largest nuclear explosive ever to be detonated, and is also the highest power device ever used by humans. It was detonated on October 30, 1961, as a test; this took place at a height of 4,000 metres over the Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Sea; it was dropped from a Tu-95 bomber.

Detonation

Tsar Bomba was detonated on October 30, 1961, over the nuclear testing range at Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Sea. It was dropped from a specially modified Tu-95 bomber at 11:30 a.m. at 10,500 metres altitude by pilot Major Andrei E. Durnovtsev. The bomb was detonated at 11:33 a.m. with the aid of barometric sensors at the height 4,000 metres over the land surface (4,200 over the sea level). The fireball touched the ground and reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane, which was already in the safe zone some 45 km away. Light from the detonation was visible 1,000 km away; the mushroom cloud rose as high as 64 km and developed to a width of 30-40 km.

Related Topics:
October 30 - 1961 - Nuclear testing - Novaya Zemlya - Arctic Sea - Tu-95 - Barometric - Mushroom cloud

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The 50-Mt test was hot enough to have induced third degree burns at 100 km, and atmospheric irregularities caused blast damage up to 1,000 km away (due to atmospheric focusing, where localized regions of destructive blast damage can be created many hundreds of kilometers away); the "dirty" 100-Mt version would have laid lethal radioactivity over an enormous area. The earthquake it produced was readable on its third time around the earth. It has been estimated that fission debris from detonation of the original 100-Mt design would have increased the total world fission fallout since the invention of nuclear weapons by 25%.

Related Topics:
Third degree burn - Atmospheric focusing - Fallout

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A bomb of this magnitude has tremendous "blowback" potential to its user (the large amounts of fallout the full version would have created would have easily been dispersed onto Warsaw Pact nations were it used against a European power), while at the same time being very inefficient, as it radiates much of its energy out into space. Modern nuclear weapon tactics call for multiple smaller bombs to produce more damage on the ground (for example, using MIRVs to deliver a "carpet" of warheads over a large area). It was not practical for use as a weapon in wartime, requiring a specially modified bomber that could not be used to deliver the massive bomb to a distant target.

Related Topics:
Blowback - Warsaw Pact - MIRV - Bomber

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Because the Tsar Bomba is the highest energy device ever detonated, it also represents the highest power device ever used by humans. Since 50 Mt is 2.1x1017 joules, the average power produced during the entire fission-fusion process that took place in around 3.9x10-8 seconds or 39 nanoseconds was around 5.3x1024 watts or 5.3 yottawatts. This represents a power just greater than one percent of the average power output of the Sun (383 yottawatts).

Related Topics:
Joule - Second - Watt - Sun - Yotta

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