Tsar Bomba | |
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The Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud seen from a distance of 161 km (100 mi). The crown of the cloud is 56 km (35 mi) high at the time of the picture.
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Type | Thermonuclear weapon |
Place of origin | Soviet Union |
Production history | |
Designer | Yulii Borisovich Khariton, Andrei Sakharov, Victor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Smirnov, Yuri Trutnev, and Yakov Zel'dovich. |
No. built | 1 |
Specifications | |
Weight | 27,000 kg (60,000 lb) |
Length | 8 m (26 ft) |
Diameter | 2.1 m (6.9 ft) |
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Blast yield | 57 Mt (240 PJ). |
Coordinates: 73°48′26″N 54°58′54″E / 73.80722°N 54.98167°E
Tsar Bomba (Russian: Царь-бомба; "Tsar-bomb") was the Western nickname for the Soviet RDS-220 hydrogen bomb (code name Ivan or Vanya), the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. Its test on October 30, 1961 remains the most powerful human-made explosion in history. It was also referred to as Kuzkina mat (Russian: Кузькина мать; "Kuzma's mother"), possibly referring to Nikita Khrushchev's promise to show the United States a Kuzkina mat (an idiom roughly translating to "We'll show you!") at a 1960 session of United Nations General Assembly. Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb had a yield of 57 megaton TNT (210 PJ). In theory, the bomb had a maximum yield of 100 megatons if it were to have included a U-238 tamper, but because only one bomb was built, this was never demonstrated. The single bomb was detonated at the Sukhoy Nos cape of Severny Island, part of Novaya Zemlya.