Testing the “gadget”

Due to uncertainties about its capabilities, General Groves and Oppenheimer decided to test the military usability of a plutonium bomb nicknamed the “gadget”. The plutonium-based bomb was detonated at the Trinity site on 16 July 1945 at 5:29 AM local time.



The result was an explosion equivalent to 19 kilotons of TNT. It created a crater 10 feet deep and over 1,000 feet wide. According to an account by Steve Sagarra (“Making the Atomic Bomb”), the blast “illuminated the surrounding landscape brighter than daylight for a few brief seconds. The mushroom cloud caused by the explosion extended nearly eight miles into the sky; the resulting shock wave traveled as far as 100 miles. Noting the accomplishment, Oppenheimer stated simply, “It worked.” He would later recall reflecting privately on a passage in the Hindu scripture, Bhagavad Gita: Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’”