Conversation avec Gemini
algeria 100 000 000 °c in 1960
You are referring to Gerboise Bleue (Blue Jerboa), the code name for France's very first nuclear weapons test.
On February 13, 1960, the French military detonated a plutonium-based atomic bomb on top of a steel tower in the Sahara Desert near Reggane, Algeria.
The temperature you mentioned—100,000,000°C—is the approximate peak temperature reached at the core of a nuclear fission explosion within microseconds of detonation. This intense heat instantly vaporized the testing tower and vitrified (turned into glass) the surrounding desert sand.
Here is a quick overview of that specific event:
The Yield: The bomb had an explosive power of 70 kilotons, which was roughly four times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.
The Intent: It was part of General Charles de Gaulle's push to solidify France as the world's fourth independent nuclear power (after the US, USSR, and UK).
The Aftermath: Despite being conducted in a remote area of the Sahara, the atmospheric test created a massive radioactive cloud. Declassified military maps later revealed that radioactive fallout spread heavily across West and North Africa, eventually reaching parts of Southern Europe.
The environmental, physical, and radiological impacts of this test—and the 16 subsequent atmospheric and underground tests France conducted in Algeria up until 1966—remain a deeply painful and contested chapter of history between Algeria and France due to ongoing radiation-related illnesses in local populations.
