Trinity – The Gadget from hell

Trinity was the codename for the first-ever detonation of a nuclear device, carried out by the United States Army on July 16, 1945. The test took place in the Jornada del Muerto desert, around 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, at what was then the White Sands Proving Ground (now known as the White Sands Missile Range). This moment is widely regarded as the dawn of the Atomic Age.

The test involved an implosion-type plutonium bomb, informally known as “the Gadget.” This same design was later used for the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The Trinity explosion released energy equivalent to roughly 20 kilotons of TNT.