A bomb tower is a lightly constructed tower

Tower

A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....

, often 100 to 700 feet (30 to 210 meters) high, built to hold a nuclear weapon

Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

 for an above ground nuclear test

Nuclear testing

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have tested them...

. The tower holds the bomb for the purpose of the investigation of its destructive effects (such as burst height and distance with given explosive yield

Nuclear weapon yield

The explosive yield of a nuclear weapon is the amount of energy discharged when a nuclear weapon is detonated, expressed usually in the equivalent mass of trinitrotoluene , either in kilotons or megatons , but sometimes also in terajoules...

) and for the adjustment of measuring instruments, such as high-speed cameras. Normally, the bomb tower disintegrates completely on detonation due to the enormous heat of the explosion (up to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit

Fahrenheit

Fahrenheit is the temperature scale proposed in 1724 by, and named after, the German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit . Within this scale, the freezing of water into ice is defined at 32 degrees, while the boiling point of water is defined to be 212 degrees...

 or 10 megakelvins).