The story of the most powerful nuclear bomb launched by man is known. It was the Tsar Bombdeveloped by the Soviet Union and tested for the first and only time October 30, 1961. Although the design contemplated a destructive power of 100 megatonswhich was built and launched over Mityushikha Bay, in the Arctic Ocean, was 50, equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT; that is, 3,300 times that of Nagasakiwhich ended the Second World War.
The shock wave gave thrice around the Earth, broke crystals at distances up to 900 km of the explosion, it was seen from to 1,000 km and the mushroom cloud reached an altitude of 64 km. And yet, the immense destructive power of this hydrogen fusion bomb pales in comparison to that of ‘the Final Bomb’which the United States designed, but never built. Sundial, ‘Sundial‘ in Spanish, it was going to have a power of 10 gigatons and be the most powerful nuclear weapon built by humanity, far ahead of the Tsar’s Bomb.
What was Sundial, the Sundial
In the early 1950s, nuclear physicist Edward Teller presented to the US Atomic Energy Commission a design for the Sundial nuclear bomb. With a planned yield of no less than 10 gigatons –10 billion tons of TNT-, represented an unprecedented escalation compared to the nuclear explosions that had taken place until then. fat manlaunched in Nagasaki, had a power of 21 kilotons. little boythe destroyer of Hiroshima, 15. Sundial had the power of about 670,000 Little Boyapproximately. This performance was equivalent to double that of all the nuclear arsenals known at the time, whose power was estimated at between 4 and 6 gigatons.
This bomb, according to Teller, could be detonated at any time.backyard‘. That is, given that it was designed to cause catastrophic destruction on a global scale, threatening the survival of humanity, the location of the detonation was not that important.
How Sundial worked
The Sundial concept was based on a series of stepwise nuclear reactionsusing the configuration Teller-Ulam. This mechanism allows theoretically unlimited returns to the chain multiple stages of fusion reactions.
The idea of chained nuclear explosions was not new. This same concept formed the core of the Tsar Bomba – a three-stage bomb – and the American device Castle BRAVO -two-stage-, detonated in 1954. Castle BRAVO was also the creation of Teller and the Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam.
Gnomon and Sundial would have completely contaminated the Earth
During a secret meeting of the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, Teller presented the idea of ’much larger explosions‘. He explained that two new designs were being developed, Gnomon and Sundial, in its Livermore laboratory.
Gnomon would have a performance of 1,000 megatons and would serve as a ‘primary’ to detonate Sundial, which would reach the 10,000 megatons. Although most of Teller’s testimony remains classified, other scientists at the meeting reported that, after his departure, They were ‘shocked’ by the proposal.
‘It would pollute the Earth‘, suggested one of those present. The physicist II Rabbia well-known critic of Teller, stated that it was probably just an advertising strategy. However, I was wrong: the Livermore lab continued working on Gnomon for several years and planned testing a prototype during Operation Redwing in 1956although the test was never carried out.
What the Sundial explosion would have been like
Although never built, Sundial would have been the largest nuclear device ever created by humanity. It would not have needed a conventional deployment method; it could have been assembled in one place and detonated.
The explosion would have been more devastating than the volcanic eruption of the Krakatoa in 1883 which released approximately 200 megatons of energy. Sundial would be equivalent to approximately one third of the eruption power of the Mount Tambora in 1815the largest recorded in history, which released 30 gigatons of energy.
Given the magnitude of the explosion, the device became known as ‘the Final Bomb’. It is estimated that it would have generated a fireball with a diameter of 800 kilometers. Launched in Madrid, only this initial fireball generated by the explosion – not counting the range of the radiation or the shock wave – would have instantly charred the peninsula, practically in its entirety. In such a scenario, no one would have survived.
Additionally, the amount of dust, debris and smoke released would have caused global environmental impacts similar to a large-scale nuclear war. The resulting ‘nuclear winter’ would have caused the collapse of agriculture, widespread famine and social chaos in many nations.