Did you know that the largest bomb ever exploded on the planet Earth was exploded in the Arctic?

On October 30, 1961 a Soviet (now "Russian") bomber headed toward Novaya Zemlya Island, high above the Arctic Circle (Map) in the Russian Arctic. It carried "Tsar Bomba" (King of the Bombs), the largest thermonuclear bomb ever built and detonated.

It had the explosive power of 53 megatons (53 million tons of TNT) - more than ten times the power of all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima (15 kilotons) and Nagasaki (22 kilotons).

The drop was made over the Mityushikha Bay test range on Novaya Zemlya Island from a very high altitude, and the bomb exploded about 2 miles / 3 km above ground. A mushroom cloud from the explosion rose 40 miles / 65 km into the air and the flash was seen almost 600 miles / 1000 km away. The shockwave circled the Earth three times.

The testing of such a bomb by the Soviet Union (now Russia) was meant to intimidate the Americans at a time when there were tensions between the two countries. Although the U.S. had more accurate bombs, the Soviets wanted to show that they had bigger bombs.