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Castle Bravo
was the first in a series of high-yield
thermonuclear-weapon
design tests conducted by the United States at
Bikini Atoll
in the Marshall Islands, as part of
Operation Castle
. Detonated on March 1, 1954, the device was the most powerful
nuclear device
detonated by the United States and the first
lithium deuteride
–fueled thermonuclear weapon tested using the
Teller–Ulam design
. Castle Bravo's
yield
was 15
megatonnes of TNT
(63 petajoules), 2.5 times the predicted 6 megatonnes of TNT (25 petajoules), due to unforeseen additional reactions involving
lithium-7
, which led to
radioactive contamination
in the surrounding area. This photograph shows the Castle Bravo nuclear device, known as
SHRIMP
, in its shot cab.
Photograph credit:
United States Atomic Energy Commission
; restored by
Bammesk
Archive
–
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