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The biggest conventional bomb in the US arsenal = 11 tons of TNT Let’s pause for a moment for a mathematical intermission to put this yield into perspective.ġ ton = 1,000 kilograms, or 2,200 pounds of explosivesġ kiloton = 1,000 tons, or about 2,200,000 poundsġ megaton = 1,000,000 tons, or about 2,200,000,000 pounds Tsar Bomba created an explosion equivalent to 50 megatons of TNT. The 1961 Soviet Tsar Bomba (“King of Bombs”) detonation, though, remains the most powerful human-made explosion in history. In 1954, the United States carried out Castle Bravo, the most powerful US nuclear weapon test (and its first thermonuclear weapon, also known as an H-bomb).
#Nuclear time lapse series
Most of the explosions took place at the height of the Cold War in a series of tit-for-tat exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union.Įven before the banner year of 1962, nuclear testing was already out of control. Yes, that’s right: the total number of US-conducted tests stands at 1,030, which is more than the number of tests done by the other seven nuclear testing countries combined. Half of the 2,056 nuclear tests were conducted by one country alone: the United States. Tens of thousands of people have been afflicted by leukemia, thyroid cancer, miscarriages, and severe birth defects as a result of past nuclear testing in the United States alone. Moreover, innocent bystanders could be exposed to the radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. Not only is the rapid rate alarming, but where they happened-mainly on the lands of indigenous people-is also shocking.Ī US resumption of nuclear tests would send a bad signal to other countries and prompt them to test and create their own nuclear weapons. While the story begins in 1945 with the first ever nuclear weapon test (code-named Trinity), the real action comes in 1962, when there were 178 tests globally, more than in any other year. In it, each nation gets a flashing dot on the map whenever it detonates a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Ten years ago, Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto created an informative but scary time-lapse map depicting all of these explosions. Since the creation of the nuclear bomb, at least eight nations have detonated 2,056 nuclear test explosions at test sites around the world. In recent weeks, the Trump administration reportedly discussed the possibility of doing something the United States has not done since 1992: resuming explosive testing of nuclear weapons.