Tsar Bomba

Also known as RDS 220, RDS-220, AN602, Tsar Bomb, Czar Bomb, Ivan, Vanya

hydrogen aerial bomb tested in 1961 by the Soviet Union; most powerful nuclear weapon ever created

AI overview

Tsar Bomba was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created, tested by the Soviet Union in 1961 as a hydrogen bomb dropped from an aircraft. It matters because it represents the extreme destructive capability that became possible during the Cold War nuclear arms race between superpowers.

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Wikidata facts

Mass: 27
Image: Tsar Bomba Revised.jpg
Width: 2100
Length: 8000

Show 6 more facts

Commons gallery: Tsar Bomba
Commons category: Tsar Bomba
total produced: 6
explosive energy equivalent: 58.7
point in time: 1961-10-30
inception: 1956-00-00

Sources (4)

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Article

The Tsar Bomba (code name: Ivan or Vanya, internal designation "AN602") is the most powerful nuclear weapon or weapon of any kind ever constructed and tested. A project of the Soviet Union, it was a thermonuclear aerial bomb, tested on 30 October 1961 at the Novaya Zemlya site in the country's far north. The bomb yielded the equivalent of 50 megatons of TNT.

The Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov oversaw the project at Arzamas-16, while the main work of design was by Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Smirnov [ru], and Yuri Trutnev. The project was ordered by First Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev in July 1961 as part of the Soviet resumption of nuclear testing after the Test Ban Moratorium, with the detonation timed to coincide with the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).