Russian government releases video of Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuclear bomb in history

The Russian government released, on August 20, the test video of the RDS-220 hydrogen bomb - popularly known as "tsar bomb” — after decades of protection from the country's authorities on the grounds that it was a secret project of the former Soviet Union, even though it was known throughout the world.

The Tsar Bomba (which also went by the Russian aliases “Ivan” and “Vanya”) is, to this day, known as the largest nuclear bomb ever created by man, with a power output of approximately 57 megatons — or 57 million tons of TNT. . For perspective purposes: "Little Boy" and "Fat Man", the bombs that hit, respectively, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, had a power of 15 and 21 kilotons (or 15 thousand and 21 thousand tons). ) of TNT: the Soviet project was 1,57 times more powerful than both.

Never used in real combat situations, the Tsar Bomba was detonated only once in all of human history: a test recorded by the Soviet government in 1961, in the arctic ocean, but all known images so far were quite grainy and were accidentally captured by a modified KC-135R aircraft for monitoring purposes, slightly impacted by the explosion which, after detonation, generated a destruction radius of 35 kilometers.

The material is approximately 40 minutes long, much of which is dedicated to establishing the scenario that led to the development of Tsar Bomba: created between the 1950s and 1960s, the artifact symbolized all the Russian development of the time in the arms race between USA and Soviet Union, in the middle of the Cold War. Its dimensions were also quite large: eight meters high, two meters wide and 27 tons.

Its weight was so great that a Russian Tu-95-202 aircraft adapted specifically for the purpose of transporting it to the test site was needed, and its launch was done with a parachute, so that the course in free fall not divert it from its course and reach another area prematurely.

The release of the material was made by the State Nuclear Energy Company - or Rosatom -, the arm of the government that commands all nuclear energy allocations (which includes weapons that contain this allocation) in Russia, in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the country's nuclear program. During the video, it is possible to see one of the Russian planes involved in the test returning home, and the cloud “mushroom” caused by the explosion perfectly visible in the background.

Tsar Bomba: rumors and conspiracies

Despite all the secrecy pertinent to the test, the Tsar Bomba ended up becoming known in official historical records, being commonly referred to as the "Doomsday Weapon" by some more alarmist experts. Although the bomb's power placed it, in fact, as the greatest of its kind, many conspiracies and myths populated the world's imagination.

Some sensational publications at the time claimed that the actual power of the hydrogen bomb was 120 megatons, saying that, after the test, even more powerful devices were in development. There is a certain truth to this as the Russian government itself has acknowledged in the past that the intention was for it to have a uranium-238 fission device, which would make it exceed the 100 megaton mark - but as only the test model was produced, such a measure became impractical by the standards of the time.

Another rumor is that Tsar Bomba had been ordered by Nikita Khruschev, leader of the Soviet government at the time, in July 1961, and completed in just 12 days. In reality, construction work on the explosive began years earlier, in 1956. (emdrprofessionaltraining.com)

Today, remains of the Tsar Bomba's metal casing are housed in the Atomic Weapons Museum in Sarov, as well as the Russian Nuclear Weapons Museum and Research Institute of Technical Physics in Snezhinsk. Watch the full video about Tsar Bomba below:

Source: The Drive