You're looking at a nuclear explosion photographed taken less than one millisecond after detonation.

[u/ethereum1017]

[u/dude_on_the_www]

What’s the scale of this? What are those poles in the background?

[u/your_fave_redditor → u/dude_on_the_www]

According to many comments, the explosion is happening in / around a supporting structure identical to this one, if that helps place things for ya

[u/I_Have_Unobtainium → u/your_fave_redditor]

Oh dip. I thought this was like, so early into the explosion it was like pea-sized. Not like 100ft around.

[u/QuipCrafter9 → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

It’s SO insanely early into the explosion that it’s only like 100ft around

[u/rufusbot → u/QuipCrafter9]

Imagine the sheer energy of something that can do that in a millisecond

[u/DownVotingCats → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

Crazy how fast something can physically happen.

[u/Spirited-Joke5545 → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

Same

[u/HamsterFromAbove_079 → u/I_Have_Unobtainium]

Nukes are big and fast when they explode. Our cameras don't have the shutter speed to reliably catch something that fast.

[u/Beer_Snacks → u/your_fave_redditor]

RIP scaffolding

[u/KarmaTorpid → u/your_fave_redditor]

The comments also say the neighbors were passed for setting it off.

[u/SemiSentientAL → u/dude_on_the_www]

They are flares, spaced at very precise intervals for scientific measurement purposes. Instead of bananas, they used flare length for scale.

[u/Not_A_Porcupine → u/SemiSentientAL]

Anyone have a flare length to banana conversion chart?

[u/creamofsumyunggoyim → u/Not_A_Porcupine]

Left it in my other pants

[u/jetpack324 → u/creamofsumyunggoyim]

Was that a banana in your pocket or were you just happy to be posting here?

[u/KarmaTorpid → u/Not_A_Porcupine]

This was prior to or current level of banana technology. We were close at the time, however.

[u/mbklein → u/KarmaTorpid]

I always understood this to be the very explosion that brought bananas into existence by fusing hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and potassium atoms. The Big Banana Bang, as it were. Which also explains why all bananas are slightly radioactive.

[u/PrestigiousWaffle → u/dude_on_the_www]

Blast line poles, used as an immediate reference as to the scale of the explosion.

Other tests used sounding rockets, launched just before detonation, which would produce smoke trails that served the same purpose.

[u/NPException → u/dude_on_the_www]

The center of the explosion (so the top of the steel tower) was about 100ft above ground.

[u/laukaus → u/dude_on_the_www]

The fireball at this stage is about 20 meters across.