Castle Romeo mushroom cloud.

Castle Romeo was the code name given to one of the tests in the Operation Castle series of American nuclear tests. It was the first test of the TX-17 thermonuclear weapon (initially the "emergency capability" EC-17), the first deployed U.S. thermonuclear bomb. Image File history File links Castle_romeo. ... Image File history File links Castle_romeo. ... Operation Castle was a series of nuclear weapon tests that the USA conducted in 1954. ... Preparation for an underground nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site in the 1980s. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 lifted nuclear fallout some 18 km (60,000 feet) above the epicenter. ...

The so-called "runt" device was a weaponized "dry" fusion bomb, using lithium deuteride fuel for the fusion stage of a "staged" fusion bomb, unlike the cryogenic liquid deuterium of the first-generation Ivy Mike fusion device. The deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion reaction is considered the most promising for producing fusion power. ... Lithium hydride (LiH) (also known as Lithium deuteride, when the deuterium isotope of hydrogen is used for the hydrogen component) is a compound of lithium and hydrogen. ... Nuclear weapon designs are often divided into two classes, based on the dominant source of the nuclear weapons energy. ... Cryogenics is the study of very low temperatures or the production of the same, and is often confused with cryobiology, the study of the effect of low temperatures on organisms, or the study of cryopreservation. ... Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of one atom in 6400 of hydrogen (see VSMOW; the abundance changes slightly from one kind of natural water to another). ... The mushroom cloud from the Mike shot. ...

Similar to the "Shrimp" device tested shortly before, in the Castle Bravo test, it differed from that device in using lithium deuteride derived from natural lithium (a mixture of Lithium-6 and Lithium-7 isotopes, with 7.5% of the former) as the source of the tritium and deuterium fusion fuels, as opposed to the "enriched" lithium (approximately 40% Lithium-6) deuteride used in Bravo. A black and white photograph of the Castle Bravo mushroom cloud. ... General Name, Symbol, Number lithium, Li, 3 Chemical series alkali metals Group, Period, Block 1, 2, s Appearance silvery white/gray Atomic mass 6. ... An isotope is any of several different forms of an element each having different atomic mass. ...

Another view of the Castle Romeo mushroom cloud

It was detonated on March 27, 1954, after several delays (which played havoc with the planned experimental measurements program) at Bikini atoll of the Marshall Islands, on a barge moored in the middle of the crater from the Castle Bravo test. It was the first such barge-based test, a necessity that had come about because the powerful thermonuclear devices destroyed islands if they were set off on land. Image File history File links Castle_romeo2. ... Image File history File links Castle_romeo2. ... March 27 is the 86th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (87th in leap years). ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Bikini Atoll - NASA NLT Landsat 7 (Visible Color) Satellite Image Bikini Atoll (also known as Pikinni Atoll) is an uninhabited 6. ...

Like the Bravo test, it "ran away" and produced far more than its predicted yield, and for the same reason — an unexpected participation of the common Lithium-7 isotope in fusion reactions. Although it had been predicted to produce a yield of 6 to 10 megatons (before the results of the Bravo test caused an upgrade in the estimates, it had originally been estimated to produce 3-5 megatons), it actually produced a yield of 11 megatons, the third largest test ever conducted by the U.S. A black and white photograph of the Castle Bravo mushroom cloud. ... A megaton or megatonne is a unit of mass equal to 1,000,000 metric tons, i. ...

Like the Ivy Mike and Bravo tests, a large percentage of the yield was produced by fast fission of the natural uranium "tamper"; 7 megatons of the yield were from this source. The mushroom cloud from the Mike shot. ... For the generation of electrical power by fission, see Nuclear power plant An induced nuclear fission event. ... General Name, Symbol, Number uranium, U, 92 Chemical series actinides Group, Period, Block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery gray metallic; corrodes to a spalling black oxide coat in air Atomic mass 238. ...

External links

• Operation Castle

References

• Chuck Hansen, U. S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History (Arlington: AeroFax, 1988)