Trinity Test Nuclear
Explosions

This sequence of photos was taken six miles from the first nuclear bomb explosion site. The blinding fireball awed all who witnessed it. As Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer watched the demonstration, he recalled a line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, "Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of worlds." Technically, the Trinity test proved that the complex detonation method by implosion actually worked but also revealed a highly radioactive dust skirt encircling the blast that weakened the bomb's power.