The most powerful thermonuclear bombs in the world

The Soviet Union and the United States used to build thermonuclear warheads with the power equivalent to thousands of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima city.

North Korea announced on September 3 that it had successfully tried a thermonuclear bomb with an explosion of about 50-60 kiloton, equivalent to 5 bombs dropped on Hiroshima. However, this test is still far behind the biggest thermonuclear bombs ever conducted in history, according to Army Technology.

Tsar Bomb (RDS-220)

The Soviet RDS-220 thermonuclear bomb, nicknamed "Tsar Bomba" by the West, is the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested in history. The tremendous power of this bomb put an end to the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The most powerful sixth nuclear test of Korea.

Four nuclear physicists Victor Adamskii, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Smirnov and Yuri Trutnev were tasked with designing and manufacturing a three-tier thermonuclear bomb in the Teller-Ulam design in just 15 weeks, from July 1961. . According to the original design, Tsar Bomba has the same explosive power as 100 million tons of TNT or 6,600 Hiroshima bombs. However, the manufacturing team has decided to reduce its explosion by half to ensure safety.

At 11:30 am on October 30, 1961, the bomb was dropped from Tu-95V bombers at an altitude of 10,500 m and halted by speed even if the aircraft had enough time to escape the scope of the explosion. Only 188 seconds later, the Tsar Bomba explodes at 4,200 m altitude. The bomb has the actual destructive power reaching 57 million tons of TNT, although the designers estimate its explosion is only about 51.5 million tons of TNT.

The Tsar Bomba test in 1961.

The fireball created by the Tsar Bomba has a diameter of 4.6 km, visible from a distance of 1,000 km. Mushroom cloud 95km in diameter reaches 70km high. Within an hour after the explosion, radio signals were disturbed in a radius of hundreds of kilometers due to the ionization of the atmosphere.

The shock from the explosion moves around the Earth three times. Shock waves emitted from the explosion broke the glass doors and caused a loud bang on Dikson Island, about 800km from the test site. The explosion is capable of causing third degree burns at distances up to 100km.

Nuclear bomb B41

B41 , also code - named Mk-41 , is the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever commissioned by the US. The country produced a total of 500 B41s in the 1960-1962 period and payrolls until July 1976.

The development of Mk-41 began in 1955 to meet the demand for a powerful thermonuclear bomb of nearly 5 tons for the US Air Force. The first B41 prototype was tested in the first phase of the Hardtack campaign in 1958. The strength of B41 is estimated at about 25 million tons of TNT, but the bomb has never been detonated in practice.

B41 uses three-tier Teller-Ulam design with fusion fuel is the deuterium-tritium isotope . Some scientists believe that the bomb uses both Lithium-6 deuteride fuel and a 95% enrichment rate for nuclear fusion.

The United States built two variants for the B41 bomb, including a "clean" version using a third-tier lead and a "dirty" version using lead-substituted uranium. Both were thrown from strategic bombers, armed with two brakes so that the aircraft had time to escape from the explosion.

TX-21 "Shrimp"

Castle Bravo Trial Department.

The TX-21 "Shrimp" bomb was detonated by the US on 1 March 1954 in the Castle Bravo test, taking place on Bikini Island in the Marshall Islands. With an explosion equivalent to 14.8 million tons of TNT, this is the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated by the US.

The TX-21 bomb uses Lithium-6 deuteride fusion fuel to enrich 37-40% of the encased in natural uranium casing. Explosive 14.8 million tons of TNT is nearly three times the manufacturer's estimated 5 million tons of TNT. The cause stems from the incorrect calculation in the design phase at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The force beyond the prediction caused radioactive dust from the explosion to disperse on an area of ​​11,000 km2 east of Bikini Island, before spreading to the whole world. People in Bikini were only evacuated three days later, causing many people to become seriously radioactive. The nearby 23 crew members of the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryu Maru were also exposed to radiation. The consequences of Castle Bravo's test have caused many protests around the world, especially aimed at atmospheric nuclear bomb tests.

Mk-17 / Mk-24

The Mk-17/24 bomb has a mass of 21 tons, the heaviest thermonuclear bomb ever built by the US. It is also the first thermonuclear bomb to be mass produced and staffed for the US Air Force, with an estimated power of 10-15 million tons of TNT.

The United States produced about 200 Mk-17 and 105 Mk-24 pods before 1955, which was disqualified two years later. The only difference between the two versions is that the primary-layer fabrication material is also a fission bomb. The Mk-17/24 was equipped with B-36 strategic bombers, each with a 20 m diameter parachute to escape the plane.

On May 27, 1957, an Mk-17 was accidentally dropped from the compartment on the B-36 south of the Kirtland air base, USA. The bomb fell through the bomb door at a height of 520 m. The primary level explosive block is activated when touching the ground, creating a depth of 3.7 m and a diameter of 7.6 m. Nuclear reactions do not occur because the plutonium detonation core is disassembled, but radioactive material has fired into a 1.5 km wide area.

Ivy Mike

Bomb explosion Ivy Mike.

Ivy Mike's bomb was detonated on November 1, 1952, becoming the first US thermonuclear bomb tested. This bomb has the power of equaling 10.4 million tons of TNT, 700 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Ivy Mike bombs are 6 meters long, 2 meters in diameter and weigh up to 82 tons. It cannot be implemented in practice, but it is only the task of testing and evaluating the concepts of American nuclear bombs then. The simpler and lighter version of Ivy Mike called the EC-16 was developed later.