The bomb has a mass of about
| 27,000 kg (60,000 ib) and a diameter of 6.11in ( 155mm) and a length of 26 feet. | |
The bomb was detonated 4000 m above the Sukhoy Nos ("Dry Nose") cape of Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya, 15 km (9.3 mi) from Mityushikha Bay, north of Matochkin Strait. The detonation was secret but was detected by US Intelligence agencies. The US apparently had an instrumented KC-135R aircraft (Operation SpeedLight) in the area of the test – close enough to have been scorched by the blast. The bhangmeter results and other data suggested the bomb yielded about 58 megatons of TNT [Mt] (240 PJ), and that was the accepted yield in technical literature until 1991 when Soviet scientists claimed that their instruments indicated a yield of 50 Mt (210 PJ).As they had the instrumental data and access to the test site, their yield figure has been accepted as more accurate. In theory, the bomb would have had a yield in excess of 100 Mt (420 PJ) if it had included a uranium-238 tamper but, because only one bomb was built to completion, that capability has never been demonstrated. The Tsar Bomba differs from its parent design – the RN202 – in several places. The Tsar Bomba was a three-stage bomb with Trutnev-Babaev second- and third-stage design, with a yield of 50 Mt (210 PJ). This is equivalent to about 1,570 times the combined energy of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki,10 times the combined enerrgy of all the conventional explosives used in World War II,one quarter of the estimated yield of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa 🌋 and 10% of the combined yield of all nuclear tests to date. A three-stage hydrogen bomb uses a fission Bomb primary to compress a thermonuclear secondary, as in most hydrogen bombs, and then uses energy from the resulting explosion to compress a much larger additional thermonuclear stage. There is evidence that the Tsar Bomba had several third stages rather than a single very large one. The initial three-stage design (coded A620EN, not tested) was capable of yielding approximately 100 Mt (420 PJ) through fast fission, 3,000 times the size of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, but it was thought that it would have caused too much nuclear fallout and the aircraft delivering the bomb would not have had enough time to escape the explosion. To limit the amount of fallout, the third stage and possibly the second stage had a lead tamper instead of a uranium-238 fusion tamper (which greatly amplifies the fusion reaction by fissioning uranium atoms with fast neutrons from the fusion reaction). This eliminated fast fissioning by the fusion-stage neutrons so that approximately 97% of the total yield resulted from thermonuclear fusion alone (as such, it was one of the "cleanest" nuclear bombs ever created, generating a very low amount of fallout relative to its yield).There was a strong incentive for this modification since most of the fallout from a test of the bomb would likely have descended on populated Soviet territory Despite the creation of the Tu-95Vbomb-carrier aircraft, the actual test of the Tsar Bomba was postponed for political reasons; namely Khrushchev's visit to the United States and a pause in the Cold War. The Tu-95V during this period was flown to Uzin (situated in today's Ukraine) and was used as a training aircraft, therefore it was no longer listed as a combat aircraft. With the beginning of a new round of the Cold War in 1961 the test was resumed. The Tu-95V had all connectors in its automatic release mechanism replaced, the bomb bay doors removed and the aircraft itself covered with a special reflective white paint. Khrushchev himself announced the upcoming tests of the Tsar Bomba in his report at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU on 17 October 1961.  Site of the detonation The Tsar Bomba was tested on 30 October 1961, flown to its test site by Major Andrew Durnovtsev. The Tu-95 bombers were designed to carry much lighter and smaller weapons (at maximum 27 tons after modernization), meaning the Tsar Bomba was too big to be placed on a missile and too heavy for the planes to transport it to the target with enough fuel. Taking off from the Olenya airfield in the Kola Peninsula, the release plane was accompanied by a Tu-16 observer plane that took air samples and filmed the test. Both aircraft were painted with the special reflective paint to minimize heat damage. Despite this effort, Durnovtsev and his crew were given only a 50% chance of surviving the test. The bomb, weighing 27 metric tons, was so large (8 metres [26 ft] long by 2.1 metres [6 ft 11 in] in diameter) that the Tu-95V had to have its bomb bay doors and fuselage fuel tanks removed. The bomb was attached to an 800-kilogram (1,800 lb), 1,600-square-metre (17,000 sq ft) parachute, which gave the release and observer planes time to fly about 45 kilometres (28 mi) away from ground zero, giving them a 50 percent chance of survival.The bomb was released two hours after takeoff from a height of 10,500 m (34,500 ft) on a test target within Sukhoy Nos. The Tsar Bomba detonated at 11:32 (or 11:33) Moscow Time on 30 October 1961, over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range (Sukhoy Nos Zone C), north of the Arctic Circle over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, at a height of 4,200 m ASL (4000 m above the target) (some sources suggest 3,900 m ASL and 3,700 m above target, or 4,500 m). By this time the Tu-95V had already escaped to 39 km (24 mi) away, and the Tu-16 53.5 km (33.2 mi) away. When detonation occurred, the shock wave caught up with the Tu-95V at a distance of 115 km (71 mi) and the Tu-16 at 205 km (127 mi). The Tu-95V dropped 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) in the air because of the shock wave but was able to recover and land safely.According to initial data, the Tsar Bomba had a nuclear yield of 58.6 Mt (245 PJ) (significantly exceeding what the design itself would suggest) and was overestimated at values all the way up to 75 Mt (310 PJ).  The Tsar Bomba's fireball, about 8 km (5.0 mi) wide at its maximum, was prevented from touching the ground by the shock wave, but nearly reached 10.5 km (6.5 mi) altitude in the sky – the altitude of the deploying Tu-95 bomber The original, November 1961, United's States Atomic Energy Commission estimate of the yield was 55–60 Mt (230–250 PJ). First secretary Khrushchev warned in a filmed speech to the Supreme Soviet of the existence of a 100-megaton bomb (technically the design was capable of this yield). Although simplistic fireball calculations predicted the fireball would hit the ground, the bomb's own shock wave bounced back and prevented this.The 8-kilometre-wide (5.0 mi) fireball reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane and was visible at almost 1,000 km (620 mi) away from where it ascended. The mushroom cloud was about 67 km (42 mi) high (over seven times the height of Mount Everest), which meant that the cloud was above the stratosphere and well inside the mesosphere when it peaked. The cap of the mushroom cloud had a peak width of 95 km (59 mi) and its base was 40 km (25 mi) wide. All buildings in the village of Severny(both wooden and brick), located 55 km (34 mi) from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometres from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed, stone ones lost their roofs, windows, and doors, and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. One participant in the test saw a bright flash through dark goggles and felt the effects of a thermal pulse even at a distance of 270 km (170 mi). The heat from the explosion could have caused third-degree burns 100 km (62 mi) away from ground zero. A shock wave was observed in the air at Dikson settlement 700 km (430 mi) away; windowpanes were partially broken for distances up to 900 kilometres (560 mi). Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in Norway and Finland. Despite being detonated 4.2 kilometres (2.6 mi) above ground, its seismic body wave magnitude was estimated at 5.0–5.25 . Immediately after the test, several U.S. Senators condemned the Soviet Union. Prime Minister of Sweden, Tage Erlander saw the blast as the Soviets' answer to a personal appeal to halt nuclear testing that he had sent the Soviet leader in the week prior to the blast.The British Foreign Office, Prime Minister of NorwayEinar Gerhardsen, Prime Minister of Denmark Viggo Kampmann and others also released statements condemning the blast. Russian and Chinese radio stations mentioned the American underground nuclear test of a much smaller bomb (possibly the Mink test)carried out the day prior, without mentioning the Tsar Bomba test. Analysis  Total destruction radius, superimposed on Paris. Red circle = total destruction (radius 35 kilometers), yellow circle = fireball (radius 3.5 kilometers). The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever deployed on Earth.[35] For comparison, the largest weapon ever produced by the U.S., the now-decommissioned B41, had a predicted maximum yield of 25 megatons of TNT (100 PJ). The largest nuclear device ever tested by the U.S. (Castle Bravo) yielded 15 megatons of TNT (63 PJ) because of an unexpectedly high involvement of lithium-7 in the fusion reaction; the preliminary prediction for the yield was from 4 to 6 megatons of TNT (17 to 25 PJ). The largest weapons deployed by the Soviet Union were also around 25 megatons of TNT (100 PJ) (e.g., the SS-18 Mod. 3 warhead). The weight and size of the Tsar Bomba limited the range and speed of the specially modified bomber carrying it. Delivery by an intercontinental ballistic missile would have required a much stronger missile (the Proton started its development as that delivery system). It has been estimated that detonating the original 100 Mt design would have released fallout amounting to about 26% of all fallout emitted since the invention of nuclear weapons. It was decided that a full 100 Mt detonation would create a nuclear fallout that was unacceptable in terms of pollution from a single test, as well as a near certainty that the release plane and crew would be destroyed before it could escape the blast radius. The Tsar Bomba was the culmination of a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapons designed by the Soviet Union and the United States during the 1950s (e.g., the Mark 17and B41 nuclear bombs). 
|
No comments:
Post a Comment