The Father Of All Bombs
The Russians have tested a new type of weapon, as powerful as a nuclear bomb, but without all that pesky radiation! Instead, this vacuum bomb gets its power from a fuel-air mixture, which unleashes a destructive shockwave. It's reportedly four times more powerful than the U.S.'s version, known as the MOAB (mother of all bombs), which was the most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed - until now.The weapon was successfully field-tested in the late evening of September 11, 2007, when it was dropped from a Tupolev Tu-160 heavy bomber with a parachute and exploded. The weapon yields the equivalent of 44 tons of TNT using 7.8 tons of a new type of high explosive, created applying nanotechnology. In comparison, the MOAB produces the equivalent of 11 tons of TNT from 8 tons of high explosive. The blast radius of 300 m is twice as large as the MOAB.
If the blast doesn't incinerate people, its second phase employs a technology based on the "thermobaric" principle which uses heat and pressure to kill people targeted across a wide field - by sucking the air out of their lungs and rupturing internal organs.
Below are a couple of video footages of the bomb from two different news sources.
