How big is a nuclear mushroom cloud? The true scale of a nuclear explosion will chill you to the bone
The terrifying power of nuclear weapons was first demonstrated when bombs were dropped in 1945
THE Cold War may be well behind us, but the threat of nuclear annihilation has never truly gone away.
The terrifying power of nuclear weapons was first demonstrated when bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the deadly devices have only become more powerful in the years since.
The US bombing of Japan, which secured the end of the Second World War, brought the planet to a standstill and ended around 130,000 lives.
The only two nuclear weapons to ever have been used, known as Little Boy and Fat Man, flattened their targets as huge mushroom clouds rose into the sky.
But those bombs, which each exploded with the force of around 20,000 tons of TNT, are nothing compared to the weapons in existence today.
A reveals how those two terrifying explosions pale into insignificance compared to today's nuclear weapons, which can explode with unimaginable power.
And a graphic comparison of nuclear weapons puts the deadly devices into terrifying perspective.
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Nuclear explosions are measured in Megatons and Kilotons, with one Megaton equal to 1,000,000 tons of TNT, and one Kiloton equal to 1,000 tons.
And the 15-Kiloton Hiroshima explosion is nothing compared to the power of a more modern B83 bomb, which is 80 times more powerful than the early devices.
In fact, the 20,000 metre mushroom cloud kicked up by a B83 bomb is so big that it would tower over Mount Everest, the highest peak on Earth.
And whilst US-made B83s are big, they're nothing compared to the biggest bomb ever tested by the USA - the Castle Bravo bomb.
This killing machine creates a 30,000 metre mushroom cloud, exploding with the force of 15 million tons of TNT and a blast 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
But it's the Russians who boast the most powerful nuke ever detonated - the 50-Megaton Tsar Bomba, which created the most powerful man-made explosion ever.
The bomb's shockwaves nearly destroyed the plane which dropped it, and circled around the world three times.
And an even bigger version, which would have produced a 1,000 Megaton blast, was conceived by Russian scientists - but thankfully it was never developed.
Only a handful of countries posses nuclear weapons, with five countries currently considered to be "nuclear-weapon states".
The UK, America, Russia, China and France are all armed with nukes, although these five have signed a treaty which forbids them from ever being used.
However, India, Pakistan and North Korea have since developed devices of their own - and are not part of the formal agreement to never use the terrifying weapons.