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The Most Powerful Bomb Ever Constructed

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Tsar-bomb is the Western name for the largest, most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb of about 50 megatons was codenamed Ivan by its developers.
The bomb was tested on October 30, 1961, in Novaya Zemlya, an island in the Arctic Sea. The device was scaled down from its original design of 100 megatons to reduce the resulting nuclear fallout. Tsar was a multi-stage hydrogen bomb which was built in only fifteen weeks by engineers in the USSR, using off-the-shelf nuclear weapon components.

The Tsar Bomba was flown to its test site by a specially modified Tu-95 release plane. It was too large to fit entirely within the bomb bay of the Tupolev Tu-95, the largest Soviet bomber of the day.

Even at half strength, Ivan was so powerful that it was completely impractical. Much of the explosion's energy radiated upwards into space, and that which didn't was so excessive that using the device on any populated targets world would have resulted in adverse effects on Russian interests. It served as nothing more than a show of force, and in that respect, it served its purpose well. Thankfully, no other weapon with the massive destructive power of Tsar Bomba has ever been built.


More info:
Google Video
Wikipedia article on Tsar Bomba
 
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