Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of Operation Castle. Detonated on March 1, 1954, the device remains the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States and the first lithium deuteride-fueled thermonuclear weapon tested using the Teller-Ulam design.[1][2] Castle Bravo's yield was 15 megatons of TNT [Mt] (63 PJ), 2.5 times the predicted 6 Mt (25 PJ), due to unforeseen additional reactions involving lithium-7,[3] which led to radioactive contamination in the surrounding area.[4]
Fallout, the heaviest of which was in the form of pulverized surface coral from the detonation, fell on residents of Rongelap and Utirik atolls, while the more particulate and gaseous fallout spread around the world. The inhabitants of the islands were not evacuated until three days later and suffered radiation sickness. Twenty-three crew members of the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") were also contaminated by the heavy fallout, experiencing acute radiation syndrome, including the death six months later of Kuboyama Aikichi, the boat's chief radioman. The blast incited a strong international reaction over atmospheric thermonuclear testing.[5]
The Bravo Crater is located at 11°41′50″N165°16′19″E / 11.69722°N 165.27194°E / 11.69722; 165.27194. The remains of the Castle Bravo causeway are at 11°42′6″N165°17′7″E / 11.70167°N 165.28528°E / 11.70167; 165.28528.
^"Operation Castle". nuclearweaponarchive.org. Retrieved September 23, 2017.
^Rowberry, Ariana (November 30, 2001). "Castle Bravo: The Largest U.S. Nuclear Explosion". Brookings Institution. Retrieved September 23, 2017.
^"Operation Castle". nuclearweaponarchive.org. May 17, 2006. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
^Hughes EW; Molina MR; Abella MKIL; Nikolić-Hughes I; Ruderman MA (July 30, 2019). "Radiation maps of ocean sediment from the Castle Bravo crater". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116 (31): 15420–15424. Bibcode:2019PNAS..11615420H. doi:10.1073/pnas.1903478116. PMC 6681739. PMID 31308235.
^Foster, John Bellamy (2009). The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet. Monthly Review Press. p. 73.
CastleBravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands...
detonated with over twice their predicted yields. One test in particular, CastleBravo, resulted in extensive radiological contamination. The fallout affected...
Marshall Islands, on a barge moored in the middle of the crater from the CastleBravo test. It was the first such barge-based test, a necessity that had come...
second series of tests in 1954 was codenamed Operation Castle. The first detonation was CastleBravo, which tested a new design utilizing a dry-fuel thermonuclear...
Look up Bravo or bravo in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Bravo(s) or The Bravo(s) may refer to: Bravo (band), a Russian rock band Bravo (Spanish group)...
"radiophobia" or "nuclear neurosis". On March 1, 1954, the operation CastleBravo, testing a first-of-its-kind experimental thermonuclear Shrimp device...
a TX-16/EC-16 Jughead bomb, but the design became obsolete after the CastleBravo test was successful. The test device was replaced with a TX-24/EC-24...
fallout such as that experienced by Pacific Islanders following the CastleBravo thermonuclear test. Strauss was the driving force behind physicist J...
powerful thermonuclear charge tested by the United States was 15 Mt, or CastleBravo). After the Tsar Bomba test, the United States did not increase the power...
US CastleBravo test at Bikini Atoll (part of Operation Castle) had a yield of 15 megatons of TNT, more than doubling the expected yield. The Castle Bravo...
feet (27 m) deep in the bottom of the lagoon. Like the Ivy Mike, CastleBravo, and Castle Romeo tests, a large percentage of the yield was produced by fast...
total yield of around 210 megatons, with the largest being the 15 Mt CastleBravo shot of 1954 which spread considerable nuclear fallout on many of the...
to be tested in operation Castle Yankee, as a backup in case the non-cryogenic "Shrimp" fusion device (tested in CastleBravo) failed to work; that test...
largest-ever U.S. nuclear test explosion, the 15-megaton CastleBravo shot of Operation Castle at Bikini Atoll, delivered a promptly lethal dose of fission-product...
lithium deuteride fusion fuel instead. In 1954 this was tested in the "CastleBravo" shot (the device was code-named Shrimp), which had a yield of 15 Mt...
bomb in the Castle Yankee test of Operation Castle was canceled due to the spectacular success of the "Shrimp" device in the CastleBravo test. List of...
on the decks). Parts of the sea bottom may become fallout. After the CastleBravo test, white dust—contaminated calcium oxide particles originating from...
exposures of Marshall Islanders and Japanese fishers in the case of the CastleBravo incident in 1954. A number of groups of U.S. citizens—especially farmers...
prototype that had been detonated during the CastleBravo test in March 1954. While most of the Operation Castle tests were intended to evaluate weapons intended...
the people of Bikini because in 1954 the United States detonated the CastleBravo hydrogen bomb on the island, poisoning islanders and others with nuclear...
can involve many hazards. Some of these were illustrated in the U.S. CastleBravo test in 1954. The weapon design tested was a new form of hydrogen bomb...
Gets Dismantled". Wired. Retrieved 23 October 2011. Rowberry, Ariana. "CastleBravo: The Largest U.S. Nuclear Explosion". Brookings Institution. Retrieved...
bomb tests in 1954, and was particularly devastated by fallout from the CastleBravo test. The population asked the US to move them (several times) from Rongelap...
contaminated by fallout from CastleBravo, 1 fatality. 2 March 1954: US Navy tanker USS Patapsco contaminated by fallout from CastleBravo while sailing from Enewetak...
endothermic process, consuming 2.466 MeV. This was discovered when the 1954 CastleBravo nuclear test produced an unexpectedly high yield. Nuclear fusion of elements...
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