The Tsar Bomba wasn’t just a bomb—it was a message. In 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the largest nuclear weapon ever built ...

The figures are based on a simulation of a 50 megaton blast like the two-stage Tsar Bomba. However the original design was for a three stage device yielding 100 megatons.

Interestingly enough, Tsar Bomba was one of the “cleanest” nuclear weapons ever detonated, because the bomb’s design eliminated 97 percent of the possible fallout. Even its size was monstrous.

Interestingly enough, Tsar Bomba was one of the “cleanest” nuclear weapons ever detonated, because the bomb’s design eliminated 97 percent of the possible fallout. Even its size was monstrous.

The Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud. Photo: Fair use Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world's hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook, Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. Just after midday on October ...

The Tsar Bomba was a glimpse of how enormous a human-made nuclear explosion could be. Its yield of 50 megatons, or 50,000 kilotons, was equal to 3,800 of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima, or to 50 ...

On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union conducted an atmospheric test of the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba (Russian for “Bomb King”) nuclear weapon over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.

A newly-declassified video shows the testing of the Tsar Bomba, a nuclear weapon built by the former Soviet Union. The bomb was built in the midst of the Cold War, and only one was ever constructed.

The Tsar Bomba exploded with a destructive power equivalent to more than 1500 times that of the weapons dropped over Japan in 1945. It created a fireball more than 8 kilometers wide, ...

The explosive force of the device — nicknamed Tsar Bomba, or the Tsar’s bomb, and set off on Oct. 30, 1961 — was 50 megatons, or the equivalent of 50 million tons of conventional explosive.