Today marks the 63rd anniversary of the Trinity nuclear bomb test on July 16, 1945. Detonation of the device was the culmination of the Manhattan Project, the Allied program to create weapons using nuclear fission as their source of power.The device was mounted on the top of a steel tower in the New Mexico desert, and remotely detonated at 05:29:45.
The 20 kiloton blast created a mushroom cloud 12 kilometers high, and fused the sand surrounding the tower, creating a radioactive glass crater 3 metres deep and 330 metres wide. The detonation illuminated the surrounding mountains brighter than daylight and the shock wave was felt more than 160 kilometers away.
Upon seeing the power he'd unleashed, project director J. Robert Oppenheimer made his famous quote, recalling from the Bhagavad Gita of Hindu scripture, "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one."
Oppenheimer finished, "Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." Test director Kenneth Bainbridge replied to Oppenheimer, "Now we are all sons of bitches."
Three weeks later, the bomb known as 'Little Boy' was dropped on the unsuspecting population of Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people outright. Three days later, 'Fat Man' was unleashed on the people of Nagasaki, killing 80,000.
Welcome to the Atomic Age.
