Nuclear weapons possessing countries include the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. The current conflicts between Russia and Ukraine have raised concerns that nuclear weapons may be used.
Here are the most powerful nuclear weapons ever detonated, specifically explosions that generate more than 10 megatons. All of these massive bomb tests were many times more powerful than the nuclear bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
TSAR BOMBA Sa Hoang B order
On October 30, 2021, the Soviet Union activated the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, north of the Arctic. With the energy generated from a 50 megaton explosion, the "Tsar Bomba" is about 3,300 times more powerful than the nuclear weapons dropped by the US at Hiroshima, Japan. The guzzard bomb, named the Soviet RDS-220, is also known as the "Big Ivan" and "Vanya," although "Tsar Bomba" (Bom Sa Hoang) is its most common nickname.
According to Alex Wellerstein, director of the Science and Technology Research Program at the Stevens Institute of Technology, the Sa Hoang bomb was designed to have an explosive yield of up to 100 megaton, but it was detonated at 50 megaton. The fireball from the blast was nearly 9.7 km in diameter, "enough to cover the entire downtown of Washington or San Francisco," Wellerstein wrote.
Test 219 - Test 219
On December 24, 1962, the Soviet Union dropped a nuclear bomb at a testing site in the Novaya Zemlya Islands, Arctic. With an explosive capacity of up to 24.2 megaton, the nuclear bomb had a destructive power less than half of that of the Sa Hoang bomb but was still the second most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. The Test 219 is also about 1,600 times more powerful than the bomb dropped by the US at Hiroshima.
The second powerful nuclear weapon, the " Test 219," was one of the last nuclear bombs launched by the Soviet Union from the air, as after the 1963 ban treaty, future tests were conducted underground.
Test 147 Test 147
On August 5, 6, 6, the Soviet Union dropped a bomb with an explosive capacity of up to 21.1 megaton on the Novaya Zemlya Islands (a part of Russia's Arctic). The third strongest nuclear explosion in history is simply called the "147 experiment".
The bomb is about 1,400 times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Despite its great power, this nuclear explosion is not as well known as other incidents.
Test 173 Test 173
On September 25, 6, 6, the Soviet Union dropped a 19.1 megaton nuclear bomb on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. This is the fourth test of a powerful nuclear weapon on record, with a power 1,270 times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
A few weeks after the bomb was dropped, the Cuban missile crisis, the crisis that brought the Soviet Union and the US to the brink of nuclear war, began. During the crisis, the Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba. US President Kennedy considered attacking these locations and eventually issued a naval blockade to prevent more nuclear weapons from reaching Cuba. In the end, the Soviet Union agreed to launch the missile in exchange for the US to remove the nuclear missile from Turkey.
CastLE BRAVO
On March 1, 1954, the US detonated a nuclear weapon with a capacity of 15 megaton on the coral island of Bikini, in the Marshall Islands, in a test known as the "Castle Bravo". The bomb was detonated on the ground, not dropped from a high ground, and was the fifth most powerful nuclear explosion in human history.
The overnight blast doubled in intensity and led to about 18,130 square kilometers across the Pacific Ocean covered in nuclear radiation, exposing residents of the Marshall Islands, US soldiers and some Japanese fishing groups to high levels of radiation, according to a paper published in 2017 by the Nguyen Heritage Fund.
The Castle Bravo test has led to protests against nuclear bomb testing globally. In the following decades, the US government has paid compensation to island residents. The retired soldiers initiated a lawsuit against the government in 1984, alleging that the government had lowered the radioactive hazard in the experiments.
