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English: A simple graphic showing comparative nuclear fireball radii for a number of different tests and warheads. From largest to smallest, the diameter are: Tsar Bomba — 50 Mt — 4.6 km (2.9 mi) Castle Bravo — 15 Mt — 2.84 km (1.76 mi) W59 warhead (Minuteman missile) — 1 Mt — .96 km (0.60 mi)
The Castle Bravo device was housed in a cylinder that weighed 23,500 pounds (10,700 kg) and measured 179.5 inches (456 cm) in length and 53.9 inches (137 cm) in diameter. [ 3 ] The primary device was a COBRA deuterium-tritium gas-boosted atomic bomb made by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory , a very compact MK 7 device.
Comparative fireball radii for a selection of nuclear weapons. [citation needed] Contrary to the image, which may depict the initial fireball radius, the maximum average fireball radius of Castle Bravo, a 15-megatonne yield surface burst, is 3.3 to 3.7 km (2.1 to 2.3 mi), [6] [7] and not the 1.42 km displayed in the image.
The second series of tests in 1954 was codenamed Operation Castle. The first detonation was Castle Bravo, which tested a new design utilizing a dry-fuel thermonuclear bomb. It was detonated at dawn on March 1, 1954. Scientists miscalculated: the 15 Mt of TNT nuclear explosion far exceeded the expected yield of 4–8 Mt of TNT (6 predicted). [6]
Operation Castle was an unqualified success for the implementation of dry fuel devices. The Bravo design was quickly weaponized and is suspected to be the progenitor of the Mk-21 gravity bomb. The Mk-21 design project began on 26 March 1954 (just three weeks after Bravo), with production of 275 weapons beginning in late 1955.
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English: Diameter and temperature vs. time of the fireball of a 20 kiloton nuclear air burst (near sea-level). Self-generated fit of curves in Glasstone & Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1977).
A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky at the Mont-Tendre near Montricher in the Jura, north of Geneva, late August 12, 2009. The Perseid meteor shower is sparked every August when the Earth ...