|
|
| Fig. 1: Novaya Zemlya, the island where the Tsar Bomba was detonated. [5] (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that relies on nuclear reactions to generate its destructive power. [1] The nuclear reactions that power these weapons are fission and fusion. Fission is a nuclear reaction where the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller, lighter atomic nuclei. Atomic nuclei are the positively charged masses which make up the majority of the mass of the atom, and they are composed of neutrons and protons. Fusion is a nuclear reaction in which two or more different nuclei combine to form one or more different nuclei along with other subatomic particles such as protons or neutrons. In both processes, a large amount of energy is released, which is usually measured in units of tons of TNT (1 ton of TNT = 4.18 × 109 joules). [2]
The Tsar Bomba (official code name RDS-220) was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever devised by mankind. It was a Soviet hydrogen bomb with a multistep thermonuclear process that relied on both fission and fusion. The bomb was never deployed for any militaristic purposes, but was physically realized and tested by the Soviet Union on October 30 1961. [2] Its inception was fueled by the nuclear arms race that characterized the early years of the Cold War. The bomb was intended to intimidate the United States by solidifying Soviet nuclear supremacy in terms of qualitative destructive power as opposed to sheer quantity of bombs. Ironically enough the bomb also went by the code name Kuzkina mat, which is a Russian idiom that means to teach someone a lesson. [2]
The Tsar Bomba was designed at Armazas 16 - a Soviet nuclear weapons research facility - during a period which spanned from 1954 to 1961. [3] The bomb weighed over 25 tons and was 8 feet long. [4] It was initially designed to have an output of 100 megatons, but researchers realized that it would generate so much nuclear fallout that the airplane responsible for dropping the bomb would not be able to escape. [2] To solve this, the bomb's U-238 tamper was replaced with a lead tamper to decrease its output and make testing the bomb safer. [2] If a U-238 tamper had been used, the atoms would have undergone fission, and the energy yield would have been potentially dangerous for the pilot and nearby civilian areas. [2]
On October 16, 1931, the Tsar Bomba was detonated over 4 kilometers above the island of Novaya Zemlya in Northern Russia, which can be seen in Fig. 1. The airplane responsible for delivering the bomb was a modified Tu-95V bomb carrier and the pilot was Major Andrei Durnovtsev. A parachute was attached to the bomb in order to give the delivery aircraft along with observer aircraft time to escape. [4] The destruction generated by the bomb was unlike anything the world had ever seen. The observed yield of the bomb was 50 megatons, which was equivalent to 1,350-1,570 times the combined power of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [3] This reflected the scientific approach of the Soviets towards bomb-making, as they never mastered the precise targeted missile capabilities of the United States, which prompted them to focus on sheer power output as a means of deterrent. In comparison, the largest nuclear weapon detonated by the US, the Castle Bravo, was a 15 megaton bomb. [3] The resultant mushroom cloud was over 64 kilometers high (which is over seven times the height of Mount Everest) with a base width of 40 kilometers. [4] The damage to the surrounding areas was monumental. Homes hundreds of kilometers away from the test site were destroyed and glass shattering was reported in countries as far away as Norway and Finland. [4] The power of this bomb is so frightening that one shudders to think what would have happened if it was used outside of testing.
© Sean Afshar. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] J. M. Siracusa, Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008).
[2] S. Narayanan, The Tsar Bomba," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2015.
[3] G. J. DeGroot, The Bomb: A Life (Harvard University Press, 2005).
[4] V. Adamsky and Y. Smirnov, "Moscow's Biggest Bomb: The 50-Megaton Test of October 1961," Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Issue No.4, Fall 1994, p.3.
[5] V. I. Khalturin et al., "A Review of Nuclear Testing by the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya," Sci. Global Sec. 13, 1 (2005).
