Test 219 was a

nuclear test Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, Nuclear weapon yield, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detona ...

conducted by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

in the atmosphere via ICBM. The test was performed on December 22, 1962 over the

Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; rus, Но́вая Земля́, p=ˈnovəjə zʲɪmˈlʲa, ) is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island ...

test range. It was a thermonuclear fusion bomb with a yield of about 24.4 megatons and a destruction radius of about , making it the second largest thermonuclear explosion in history, only behind the

Tsar Bomba The Tsar Bomba () (code name: ''Ivan'' or ''Vanya''), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a thermonuclear aerial bomb, and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested. Overall, the Soviet physicist Andrei Sa ...

test. It exploded at height of 2.44 mi (3.75 km).

References

Soviet nuclear weapons testing 1962 in Russia 1962 in military history Explosions in 1962 December 1962 events Novaya Zemlya {{russia-mil-stub