At first, a lot of people would not know what it is in the picture. The truth is...
It's actually a ultra high speed photograph of a nuclear explosion. The photo taken nanoseconds after detonation of nuclear device from the "Tumbler-Snapper" test series in Nevada (1952). (The shot tower is faintly visible below fireball; downward spikes are termed "rope tricks"). The explosion was captured by a rapatronic camera. It is a high-speed camera capable of recording a still image with an exposure time as brief as 10 nanoseconds. The photograph was shot from 7 miles away. The fireball is roughly 20 meters in diameter, and three times hotter than the surface of the sun.
This is a video of the explosion
And this is the super camera which captured that historic moment
Rapatronic camera