Finally, science has answered the key question of our time: What would happen if you detonated many tons of explosives in the deepest place on the entire Earth?
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In 1961, the Soviet Union tested “Tsar Bomba,” a 27-ton, 26-foot-long bomb that remains the biggest thermonuclear weapon of all time. The mushroom cloud reached an altitude of 210,000 feet, people observed the flash through bad weather at 621 miles, and an observer felt heat from the explosion at a distance of 168 miles.
While nobody was killed in the test, which was held in one of the most remote regions of the Soviet Union, if Tsar Bomba fell on Washington, D.C., it would've killed 2.2 million people and spread dangerous levels of radioactivity as far away as Pennsylvania, according to NUKEMAP.
Now, YouTube’s “HOWEVER” channel posits a million Tsar Bombas that are sunk into the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, with rippling ramifications for our whole planet’s crust:
One major factor here is that the extreme pressure inside the Challenger Deep would do a lot to stanch even the most powerful nuclear bomb ever made. Without air and with the weight and pressure of tens of thousands of feet of water, the explosion itself would be much smaller. But the hot spot that resulted in the water itself could turn a regular tropical storm into a typhoon and cause radiation effects for people on land.
That’s interesting, but if enough Tsar Bombas were dropped into the Challenger Deep, there would be half-a-mile-high waves and a fracture that digs all the way to Earth’s mantle. The explosive force would throw rock and water nearly to the Karman line. And while huge portions of cities around the world would be washed over and destroyed by enormous waves, what happened underneath the Challenger Deep would be even worse.
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With a freshly opened doorway to the mantle, molten rock would flood upward, filling the Mariana Trench and overflowing the area with magma. The seismic, tectonic impact could trigger the Ring of Fire to erupt as well. All of this would fill the atmosphere with far more carbon dioxide, changing the makeup of our formly breathable air and trapping heat.
This is a thought experiment that wouldn’t be possible in real life, but reflects some of our anxieties and contingency plans around the potential for nuclear war. The real thing would be more violent on land, more immediately devastating to humankind, and with extreme fallout that lasted for decades. But at least there wouldn't be volcanoes.
Caroline Delbert
Caroline Delbert is a writer, avid reader, and contributing editor at Pop Mech. She's also an enthusiast of just about everything. Her favorite topics include nuclear energy, cosmology, math of everyday things, and the philosophy of it all.
FAQs
The resulting damage was equally massive. Severny, an uninhabited village 34 miles (55 km) from ground zero, was leveled, and buildings more than 100 miles (160 km) away were reportedly damaged. In addition, it was estimated that heat from the blast would have caused third-degree burns up to 62 miles (100 km) distant.
Can Tsar Bomba destroy Earth? ›
The largest bomb ever detonated was the Tsar Bomba. That's a physical impossibility. It would take an impact from something the size of the planet Mars to smash the Earth to pieces and even then it wouldn't be entirely destroyed, just split into a number of large chunks.
What if the Tsar bomb was at full power? ›
Tsar Bomba could have theoretically yielded as much as 100 megatons, but it would have resulted in a dangerous level of nuclear fallout (approximately 25% of all fallout produced since the invention of nuclear weapons in 1945).
What if Tsar Bomba was 100 megatons? ›
It has been estimated that detonating the original 100 Mt (420 PJ) design would have increased the world's total fission fallout since the invention of the atomic bomb by 25%.
Is there a bomb bigger than Tsar Bomba? ›
The Tsar Bomba is the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever detonated, as no other bomb as strong has ever been tested. While there were no deaths from the Tsar Bomba's test, there were windows shattered due to the explosion 780km (480 miles) away in a village on Dikson Island.
Can Tsar Bomba destroy a city? ›
The mushroom cloud was 25 miles wide at its base and almost 60 miles wide at its top. At 40 miles high, it penetrated the stratosphere. Everything within three dozen miles of the impact was vaporized, but severe damage extended to 150 miles radius—enough to entirely annihilate any modern major city, including suburbs.
Can 1 nuclear bomb destroy the world? ›
In short, the total available resources on our planet would plummet, and the loss of human life would be staggering. Scientists estimate losses counted in the billions. There isn't a nuclear bomb on Earth that could actually destroy the world, but they could destroy the world as we know it.
Which bomb can destroy Earth? ›
Russia's Tsar bomba: World's most powerful nuclear weapon of mass destruction - World News.
What is the biggest bomb ever? ›
The Tsar Bomba, detonated by the Soviet Union in 1961, is the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested. It had a yield of about 50 megatons, making it approximately 3,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Does Tsar Bomba still exist? ›
The Tsar Bomba was a one-off designed to showcase the Soviet Union's military might, and to date, no further iterations of the weapon have been made. Hydrogen bombs, such as the B83 or Tsar Bomba, utilize nuclear fusion, whereas atomic bombs rely on fission.
The Tsar Bomba was certainly not a practical weapon; even so, it would take 10 million Tsar Bombas detonated at the centre of the earth to ensure destruction of the planet. It may not be possible for nuclear weapons to destroy the earth, but destroying humanity is possible.
How many tsar bombs would it take to end the world? ›
Tsar Bomba is the most powerful nuclear bomb ever made. One bomb would be stanched, but a million could easily destroy the Earth.
What would a 1 gigaton nuke do? ›
Potential gigaton yield devices are "doomsday bombs." One detonated about 16 kilometers up would start fires over an area of more than 700,000 square kilometers. A few 1000 gigatons would be enough to kill all humans.
What's more powerful than a nuke? ›
Hydrogen bombs cause a bigger explosion, which means the shock waves, blast, heat and radiation all have larger reach than an atomic bomb, according to Page 3 Edward Morse, a professor of nuclear engineering at University of California, Berkeley.
How big was the nuke that hit Japan? ›
The bomb weighed 9,000 pounds and had a diameter of only 28 inches. The gun-type weapon possessed the power of 26,000,000 pounds of high explosives. Nuclear fission was achieved by the collision of two parts of active material (Uranium-235).
Why wasn t Tsar Bomba used? ›
Bigger than Tsar Bomba
Originally designed to have a 100-megaton yield, its Soviet makers had to downsize it because it would have been too large to fly in any Soviet aircraft. Moreover, they were concerned that the radiation it might produce would blanket the northern section of the Soviet Union.
Is there anything worse than Tsar Bomba? ›
There has been no other bomb detonated (or even assembled) that was larger. Yes, the AN602. The Soviets developed three AN602 physics packages at 101.5 Mt. One of these of downscaled to 51 Mt and used in the RDS-220 Vanya (Tsar Bomba).
