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In terms of energy released (usually measured in TNT equivalence), Castle Bravo was about 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. Castle Bravo is the sixth largest nuclear explosion in history, exceeded by the Soviet tests of Tsar Bomba at approximately 50 Mt, Test 219 at 24.2 Mt, and ...
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.
Six very large nuclear tests were conducted at the Bikini Atoll and the Enewetak Atoll as part of Operation Castle in 1954. The most notable was Castle Bravo, which was the first deployable (dry fuel) hydrogen bomb developed by the United States. Its yield, at 15 Mt, was over twice as powerful as was predicted, and remains the largest weapon ...
Bikini Atoll (/ ˈ b ɪ k ɪ ˌ n iː / or / b ɪ ˈ k iː n i /; Marshallese: Pikinni, [pʲiɡinnʲi], lit. ' coconut place '), [2] known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 19th century and 1946, [3] is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 km 2) central lagoon.
The Castle Bravo shot of 1 March 1954, at Bikini Atoll, was the first test of a deployable (solid fuel) thermonuclear weapon, and also (accidentally) [citation needed] the largest weapon ever tested by the United States (15 megatons). It was also the single largest U.S. radiological accident in connection with nuclear testing.
[17] [18] Six days after the Castle Bravo test, the U.S government set up a secret project to study the medical effects of the weapon on the residents of the Marshall Islands. [19] The United States was subsequently accused of having used the inhabitants in medical research (without receiving consent) to study the effects of nuclear exposure. [4]
The first after Crossroads was the dirtiest: the 15 megaton Bravo shot of Operation Castle on March 1, 1954, which was the largest-ever U.S. test. Fallout from Bravo caused radiation injury to Bikini islanders who were living on Rongelap Atoll. [181]