Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom the year. During Operation Hurricane, an atomic bomb was detonated on board the frigate anchored in a lagoon in the Monte Bello Islands in Western Australia on 3 October 1952. Britain thereby became the third country to develop and test nuclear weapons. This led to the development of the first deployed weapon, the Blue Danube free-fall bomb. It had a diameter, 32 explosive lens implosion system with a levitated pit suspended within a natural uranium tamper. The warhead was contained within a bomb casing measuring diameter and long, and it weighed approximately , of which about was high explosive. The
Crack in the World atomic device is used and Rampion's fears prove justified, as the crust of the Earth develops an enormous crack that progresses rapidly. Sorenson discovers that there was a huge reservoir of hydrogen underground, which turned the small conventional atomic explosion into a huge thermonuclear one that was millions of times more powerful. Another atomic device, lowered into the magma chamber of an island volcano, is used in the hope of stopping the crack, but it only reverses the crack's direction. Eventually the crack returns to its starting point at the test site, and a huge chunk of the planet outlined