Einsteinium was discovered by Manhattan Project nuclear scientist Albert Ghiorso in the fallout from the detonation of the hydrogen bomb known as Ivy Mike in 1952. Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images
On Nov. 1, 1952, a team of American scientists working for the U.S. military threw the switch on a strange three-story structure codenamed Ivy Mike. It was the world s first hydrogen bomb, a new breed of nuclear weapon that was 700 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
The bomb test took place on a tiny atoll named Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific. When Ivy Mike was detonated, it released 10.4 megatons of explosive power, roughly the equivalent of 10.4 million sticks of TNT. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, for comparison, produced just 15 kilotons (15,000 sticks of TNT).
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