60 years ago today, the Soviet Union tested the largest-ever thermonuclear bomb—a 50-Mt RDS-220 (originally designed for 100 Mt). The device, later dubbed “Tsar Bomba,” was dropped by a Tu-95 Bear bomber and exploded ~13,123 feet above Novaya Zemlya inside the Arctic Circle.
The RDS-220—designed and built in only 4 months—was 26 ft. long, 6.9 ft. in diameter, and weighed 59,525 lbs., including an 1,800-lb. retardation parachute. It was released above 34,000 ft. and fell for 188 seconds, allowing the aircraft time to reach a safe distance (~30 miles).
The 50-Megaton blast was more than 3,300 times as powerful as the 15-kiloton atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It was 10 times more powerful than _all_ of the conventional munitions used in World War II. Although skies were cloudy, the flash was visible 621 miles away.
The fireball, almost 6 mi. in diameter, nearly touched the ground. The mushroom cloud rose about 40 mi.—above the stratosphere and seven times taller than Mount Everest. Seismometers recorded the magnitude of the shockwave, which circled the Earth, at 5-5.25 on the Richter scale.
In Severny, 34 miles from ground zero, the blast destroyed every wooden and brick structure. Even hundred of miles away, wooden homes were demolished while those made of stone were damaged. Windows in buildings as far away as Finland and Norway shattered by the shockwave.
The resulting mushroom eventually cloud grew to be 25 miles wide at its base and 59 miles wide at its top.
Last year, Russia's Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation posted a declassified 30-minute documentary about this unprecedented nuclear weapon test online. The remarkable propaganda film shows preparations for the test, the test itself, and its aftermath.
For more, read @wellerstein's superb new article full of new details about the development and testing of the “Tsar Bomba” and how for a time it spurred some US scientists and military leaders to seek to build and test even larger thermonuclear weapons. thebulletin.org/2021/10/the-un…
And lest you think this is all ancient history with no relevance for our times, Alex's concluding paragraph (and much of the discussion preceding it) will disabuse you of that notion:
Anticipating this unprecedented nuclear test, the Washington Post published this striking editorial cartoon by Herbert Block on October 25, 1961:
Here are some additional striking photos of the Tsar Bomba test:
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