On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated a thermonuclear device at Bikini Atoll during Operation Castle. Scientists made a catastrophic miscalculation in the lithium-7 reaction, causing the blast to be 15 megatons, three times more powerful than expected. The explosion vaporized entire islands and sent a plume of radioactive debris into the atmosphere. About 80 miles away, the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryū Maru, or Lucky Dragon No. 5, was caught in the path of the fallout. The 23 crew

Physics Uncovered on Instagram: "In August 2020, Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom released never before seen footage of the 1961 Tsar Bomba test, the most powerful nuclear explosion ever recorded. The newly declassified documentary runs about 30 minutes and shows rare angles and details of the hydrogen bomb detonation, offering a chilling look at the sheer scale of the blast. It was a hydrogen bomb tested by the Soviet Union on October 30, 1961, over Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic. Its yield w