Tsar Bomba
Wikimedia CommonsA reproduction of the Tsar Bomba.
In 1963, the Soviet Union set out to test its crowning nuclear achievement, the Tsar Bomba.
Clocking in at 25 feet long and 30 metric tons, the Tsar Bomba was the most powerful bomb ever detonated in human history.
The bomb itself was so big it didn’t fit on any of the existing aircraft. Finally, a military aircraft called the Tupolev was found and was large enough to support the weight of the giant bomb. The bomb would be affixed to the Tupolev and dropped from a parachute, leaving the plane the chance to get away before the explosion.
Wikimedia CommonsThe Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud.
When Tsar Bomba detonated, it created a fireball that was five miles wide and could be seen from 630 miles away. The resulting mushroom cloud was 40 miles high, spreading 63 miles from end to end.
The energy released was equivalent to the detonation of 57 million tons of TNT, ten times more powerful than all of the munitions expended during World War II combined. The blast wave orbited the earth three times.
The Soviet Union faced international outrage; the U.S., the U.K., and Sweden all condemned the bomb.
Then, the truth came out.
Shortly before the detonation, a small change had been made in the Tsar Bomba, in an effort to tone down the damage it would inflict. Before the change, the bomb would have been twice as powerful.
