In Southern Utah, scores of protesters gathered Saturday to protest the government’s plan to set off 700-tons of explosives next month in the Nevada Test Site. The explosion will be 50 times more powerful than the Army’s largest conventional bomb. Although the test — known as the Divine Strake — will use conventional explosives, it is being conducted in order to better understand nuclear bunker buster bombs. According to government documents, the test is needed to determine the “proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities.” The Pentagon estimates the blast will be so large that it will create a 10,000 foot-high mushroom cloud. Critics fear the dust could spread radioactive particles from old nuclear tests.