The Tsar Bomba was a weapon so massive it threatened its makers as much as its enemies. Designed to shock, it became the most powerful explosive device ever created. The Tsar Bomba (AN602) — a 50-megaton thermonuclear monster — lit the Arctic sky on October 30, 1961, proving that human ambition can outgrow reason. Conceived at the height of the Cold War, it was less a weapon than a message: an engineering triumph and a political spectacle in one. Dropped from a modified Tu-95 over Novaya Zemlya, it produced a fireball kilometers wide and a shockwave that circled the globe. How was the Tsar Bomba engineered, and why was the original design scaled down? What modifications allowed the Tu-95 to survive the blast — and bring its crew home? What happened after the detonation, and how did this single test reshape nuclear policy and global strategy? The ultimate story of power, fear, and the limits of control.