News of Hahn and Strassmann’s discovery spread rapidly. With an explosive force of 540-kilotons, Ivy King is the second largest known fission-only device ever tested after the Orange Herald nuclear device, a 720-kiloton atomic bomb tested by the United Kingdom on, which remains to date the largest fission device ever tested. Both reports'Disintegration of uranium by neutrons: a new type of nuclear reaction' and 'Physical evidence for the division of heavy nuclei under neutron bombardment'used the term 'fission' for the first time to describe the reaction. The primary designer of the Super Oralloy Bomb, physicist Ted Taylor, later became a vocal proponent of nuclear disarmament. The boron-coated chain also absorbed the neutrons needed to drive the nuclear reaction.
To physically prevent the HEU sphere collapsing into a critical condition if the surrounding explosives were detonated accidentally, or if the sphere was crushed following an aircraft accident, the hollow center was filled with a chain made from aluminum and boron, which was pulled out to arm the bomb. The HEU sphere was then enclosed in a natural-uranium tamper. The thin-walled sphere was a commonly used design, which ensured that the fissile material remained sub-critical until imploded. Its uranium- plutonium core was replaced by 60 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fashioned into a thin-walled sphere equivalent to approximately four critical masses. Instead of using an implosion system similar to the Mk-6D, it used a 92-point implosion system initially developed for the Mk-13. The Ivy King bomb, designated as a Mk-18 bomb and named the "Super Oralloy Bomb", was a modified version of the Mk-6D bomb. The top of the King cloud reached about 74,000 feet (23 km) with the mushroom base at about 40,000 feet (12 km). The tropopause height at the time of the detonation was about 58,000 feet (18 km). On Novemat 11:30 local time (23:30 GMT) a B-36H bomber dropped the bomb over a point 2,000 feet (610 m) north of Runit Island in the Enewetak atoll, resulting in a 540 kiloton explosion at 1,480 feet (450 m).
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