Ivy King Detonation 1952

Ivy King was the second detonation of Operation Ivy. While the first test Mike (which stood for Megaton) was detonated first, King (which stood for Kiloton) was detonated as a back up. King was the largest fission bomb detonated at 500 kilotons.

[nicholasmaude]

The interesting thing about the Ivy King shot is that at 500KT it's only 15KT more powerful than a W88 warhead so this shot gives a good idea as to what a W88 explosion would look like.

[twentysix]

Absolutely terrifying, i hope we can see another footage come to light..

[buzaldrin]

Fun fact: Designed to be air deliverable, Ivy King was air dropped by a B-36H bomber, and detonated at a height of 1, 480 feet (450 m).

[Aa_rush]

Gotta admit, us humans making the sun only the second hottest thing in the solar system is impressive

[Pathos]

damn, it was so bright the sky appeared blue during the explosion!

[dima.jiharev]

My god this is beautiful
Do they still do live shows?

[universal_wisdom]

The way the sky is overwhelmed by shadow is so eerie.

[AlphaKenyThing]

It's like watching a time-lapse of a sunrise.

[FlyingScotsman]

the largest pure fission bomb ever tested (Orange Herald beat the record but was a "boosted" bomb)

[Muonium]

Double flash of the incandescent, opaque shockwave very clearly visible and shock breakout leading to direct view of fireball radiation at t+1s

[nicholasmaude]

Interesting new revelation and in this shot we get to see the fireball before it turns into a mushroom cloud.

[briantaylor]

Ivy Mike: "Awwww...looka little brother go." 🥲

[dixonmixin]

Nuclear explosions are beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

[MatheuScientist]

Is beautiful (the powerful) and same time scarry, you imagine the scientists in a room, talking about what the best way goes to kill much more people, using this or that method to build the bomb...

[duncanreeves]

Where do you get these videos from? Are they public domain? Do you have to buy them from the government or some defense company?

Like specifically, where can I find the source of this?

[henrik]

I always thought a nuclear detonation would make a lot of noise so this is completely new to me.

[ChrisZoomER]

People think that the double flash is caused by the fission primary and then the fusion secondary but that's not the case. This video proves it as Ivy King features the double flash but was a pure fission bomb.

[sacr]

Double flash at the beginning, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, the intense radiation super heats the air, combined with the Shockwave expanding outward, make that compressed Shockwave air super ionized thus extremely bright. As the Shockwave expands, it cools, it then dims. Following close behind it is the actual fireball, that expands outward and everything brightens up again.

Thus a quick double flash event, slow it down and observe the very beginning.

The beauty of this is amazing.

Also, nuclear weaponry emit other forms of "existence" that we haven't the sensory organs to detect. We can detect light, thus we know about light we cant see across the entire spectrum and can detect those.

But if we had sensory organs for "blargs", we could detect blargs and all blargs emitted from this Nuclear weapon. Since we haven't the sensory organs to detect blargs, it is something we cannot comprehend.

So on top of the effects this emits that fit within our sensory input, it also emits other phenomenon that aren't within our sensory input.

This is the part of the weapon that attracts what we don't want.

Cheers.

[eamonwright]

Never seen this angle before. Such a fascinating bomb. It was 500kt pure fission bomb and I believe it was one of the “dirtiest”bombs with its radioactive effects.

[tobiaszpasterski]

In fact in 1952 it was largest as 500KT U.S fission bomb. But generally the largest fission bomb was british Orange Herald 720KT detonated in 1957.