N u c l e a r B o m B

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A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from the nuclear reaction of fission or from a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter; a modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than a ton can produce an explosion comparable to the detonation of more than a billion kilograms of conventional high explosive. The largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, the Tsar Bomb, had a yield of approximately 50 megatons of TNT and even small nuclear devices with yields equivalent to only a few thousand tons of TNT can devastate a city. Because of their extreme destructive power, nuclear devices are weapons of mass destruction.

Only two nuclear weapons have been detonated offensively, both by the USA during the closing days of World War II. The first was detonated on the morning of 6 August 1945, when the United States dropped a gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japaneese city of Hiroshima. The second was detonated three days later when the United States dropped a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat man" on the city of Nagasaki. These bombings resulted in the immediate deaths of around 120,000 people from injuries sustained from the explosion and acute radiation sickness, and even more deaths over time from long-term effects of radiation. The use of these weapons was and remains controversial