In the late Cretaceous period, the Earth was hit by a shocking blow from space, when a meteorite named Chicxulub released nearly 1 million megatons of TNT equivalent energy when it hit the Earth. The impact created a huge crater with a diameter of 180 kilometers, which directly or indirectly led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
It was a terrifying display of power in the universe, however, humanity was not intimidated and has since successfully conducted a nuclear test on a scale second only to the Chicxulub event. This nuclear explosion is unique in the history of mankind and has become a striking feature of the Tsar's nuclear bomb, known as the "King of Nuclear Bombs". This tremendous release of energy not only makes people think about the forces in the universe, but also highlights the challenges and courage of humanity in the face of the forces of nature.
The rise of the super-nuke
During World War II, with the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japan, mankind officially entered the era of nuclear **.
Among them, the atomic bomb, codenamed "Little Boy", was over Hiroshima**, killing more than 200,000 people. Although its equivalent is equivalent to 150,000 tons of TNT bomb, but due to the insufficient fission reaction, only 1 kilogram of uranium was involved in the reaction. This ** has dealt a catastrophic blow to Japan, and there are still people who have not been able to come out of the psychological shadows.
And the birth of the Tsar nuclear bomb showed an even more terrifying side. Although it also belongs to the nuclear **, it is different from the little boy. The Tsar nuclear bomb was a hydrogen bomb, and Little Boy was only an atomic bomb, and the power of the atomic bomb usually ranged from a few hundred tons to tens of thousands of tons of TNT. The upper limit of the hydrogen bomb is extremely high, and the Tsar nuclear bomb is an attempt by mankind to a super nuclear bomb, with an estimated yield of 1700 million tons of TNT explosives. Due to various factors, it was eventually reduced to 50 million tons of TNT equivalent.
Even if it is reduced by more than half, its ** yield is still 3,333 times that of the Little Boy atomic bomb. Compared with the W54 nuclear bomb, the smallest atomic bomb designed by the United States, the latter's ** yield is only about 10 to 1,000 tons. It's like the difference between Tarzan and a small hill.
The Soviet Union developed this terrifying nuclear ** mainly in response to the nuclear race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The United States was a leader in the development of the first nuclear **, therefore, in order to surpass the United States, the Soviet Union began to secretly develop the world's most powerful nuclear **. Between 1954 and 1961, the Soviet Union successfully developed two Tsarist nuclear bombs.
Huge ** trials
According to Soviet experts' estimates, if Big Ivan were detonated directly in the heart of Britain, the radioactive dust it produced would spread to some Warsaw Pact countries affecting Eastern Europe. Therefore, Western countries jokingly call the Tsar nuclear bomb the end of the world**, once dropped on the United States mainland, its threat is undoubtedly extremely terrifying. To test the feasibility of the Tsar's nuclear bombs, one of them was used by the Soviet Union for nuclear tests in the Arctic in present-day northern Russia.
The area was once a Soviet nuclear test site, where the Soviet Union conducted a total of 130 nuclear test explosions during the Cold War. At 11 a.m. on October 30, 1961, a Tu-95 aircraft carrying the Tsar's nuclear bomb flew over the test site. Due to the huge size of the Tsar nuclear bomb, the Soviet Union modified the Tu-95 in advance, removing part of the fuel tank to accommodate the nuclear bomb. In order to ensure that the pilot had enough time to escape, the Tsar Nuke was also equipped with a parachute, which allowed it to delay its landing for more than 180 seconds.
In an instant, a dazzling light burst out, followed by a huge mushroom cloud rising up, and the radius of the fireball reached 4,600 meters. The mushroom cloud soars into the sky, more than seven times the height of Mount Everest. According to expert estimates, the yield of the Tsar's nuclear bomb is equivalent to more than 10 times that of the total number of materials used worldwide during World War II.
During the entire process, the shock wave spread 1,000 kilometers, and the American early warning radar 4,000 kilometers away was affected, causing the communication system to be paralyzed for up to 20 hours, and the Eurasian continent also moved 9 millimeters to the south. Of course, the effects of the Tsar's nuclear bomb** were much more than that, and it is said that the atmospheric disturbance it caused circled the earth three times before gradually ceased. The power of the Tsar's nuclear bomb was so great that it was too much for any country to bear.
U.S. concerns
As the Soviet Union's biggest rival, the United States was obviously very worried when it learned of the successful test explosion of the Tsar's nuclear bomb. After all, everyone is afraid that this devastating ** could pose a great threat to their own country, especially for NATO countries, and this test explosion is undoubtedly like a heavy blow.
Of course, in terms of delivery technology at that time, there was no bomber that successfully delivered the Tsar nuclear bomb to the continental United States. Despite the fact that the Tu-95 successfully delivered it to the North Pole, that was already modified. And the United States, which has powerful anti-aircraft missile systems, is able to intercept nuclear bombs before they reach the border, and the modified Tu-95 has no chance of dodging at all.
Even in the Soviet Far East**, it was enough to have a terrible effect on the American state of Alaska. The future is uncertain, and if the Soviet Union develops a high-performance bomber designed to carry the Tsar's nuclear bomb, it is still unknown whether the bomber will be successfully destroyed once it enters the United States, which also puts the United States under great pressure.
Therefore, during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Tsarist nuclear bomb constituted a huge deterrent to the United States. Today, the only Tsarist nuclear bomb remains in Russia's nuclear stockpile. In 2015, its model was exhibited at a commemorative exhibition in Moscow. In 2020, Russia released a detailed video of the detonation of the Tsar's nuclear bomb, which once again made mankind intuitively feel the horror of this super power. Although the existence of the Tsar nuclear bomb was indeed somewhat unreasonable, from a technical point of view, it was also a remarkable achievement of the Soviet Union's nuclear technology at its peak.