-- Tsar Bomba --

Tsar Bomba (Russian: Царь-бомба) is the nickname for the AN602 hydrogen bomb.It is the single most physically powerful device ever used by humanity.Developed by the Soviet Union,the bomb was originally designed to have a yield of about 100 megatons of TNT(420 PJ);however,the bomb yield was reduced to 50 megatons in order to reduce nuclear fallout.This attempt was successful,as it was one of the cleanest (relative to its yield) nuclear bombs ever detonated. Only one bomb of this type was ever built and it was tested on October 30,1961,in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.The Tsar Bomba was flown to its test site by a specially modified Tu-95V release plane.The bomb, weighing 27 tonnes,was so large 8 meters long by 2 meters in diameter.The Tsar Bomba detonated at 11:32 on October 30,1961 over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range,north of the Arctic Circle on Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Sea.The bomb was dropped from an altitude of 10.5 kilometres (6.5 mi).
The fireball reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane and was seen almost 1,000 kilometres from ground zero.The subsequent mushroom cloud was about 64 kilometres (40 mi) high (nearly seven times the height of Mount Everest),which meant that the cloud was well inside the Mesosphere when it peaked.The base of the cloud was 40 kilometres (25 mi) wide.All buildings in the village of Severny(both wooden and brick),located 55 kilometres (34 mi) from ground zero,were completely destroyed.In districts hundreds of kilometers from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed,and stone ones lost their roofs,windows and doors;and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour.The heat from the explosion could have caused third-degree burns 100 km (62 miles) away from ground zero.Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances,breaking windows in Norway and Finland.The energy yield was around 7.1 on the Richter scale.
EN FRANCAIS : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba