The Soviet Union detonates the Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; equivalent to 57 megatons of TNT, it remains the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise.
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The tonne of TNT is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be 4.184 gigajoules, which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a metric ton (1,000 kilograms) of TNT. In other words, for each gram of TNT exploded, 4.184 kilojoules (or 4184 joules) of energy is released.
This convention intends to compare the destructiveness of an event with that of conventional explosive materials, of which TNT is a typical example, although other conventional explosives such as dynamite contain more energy.
The Tsar Bomba (Russian: Царь-бо́мба), (code name: Ivan or Vanya), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a hydrogen aerial bomb, and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested. Tsar Bomba was developed in the Soviet Union (USSR) by a group of nuclear physicists under the leadership of Igor Kurchatov, an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.Tested on 30 October 1961, the scientific result of the test was the experimental verification of calculation principles and multi-stage thermonuclear charges. The bomb was dropped by parachute from a Tu-95V aircraft, and detonated autonomously 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) above the Sukhoy Nos ("Dry Nose") cape of Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya, 15 km (9.3 mi) from Mityushikha Bay, north of Matochkin Strait. The detonation was intended to be secret, but was detected by United States intelligence agencies, via a KC-135A aircraft (Operation SpeedLight) in the area at the time. A secret U.S. reconnaissance aircraft named "Speed Light Alpha" monitored the blast, coming close enough to have its antiradiation paint scorched.The bhangmeter results and other data suggested the bomb yielded around 58 Mt (243 PJ), which was the accepted yield in technical literature until 1991, when Soviet scientists revealed that their instruments indicated a yield of 50 Mt (209 PJ). As they had the instrumental data and access to the test site, their yield figure has been accepted as more accurate. In theory, the bomb would have had a yield in excess of 100 Mt (418 PJ) if it had included the uranium-238 fusion tamper which figured in the design but which was omitted in the test to reduce radioactive fallout. Because only one bomb was built to completion, that capability has never been demonstrated. The remaining bomb casings are located at the Russian Atomic Weapon Museum in Sarov and the Museum of Nuclear Weapons, All-Russian Scientific Research Institute Of Technical Physics, in Snezhinsk.
Tsar Bomba was a modification of the RN202 project. A number of published books, even some authored by those involved in product development 602, contain inaccuracies that are replicated elsewhere, including wrongly identifying Tsar Bomba as RDS-202 or RN202.