Astronomy: The Tunguska Event

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The Tunguska Event The Tunguska event was a large explosion of between three and 50 megatons TNT equivalent that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908. The explosion over the sparsely populated East Siberian taiga felled a large number of trees, over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest, and eyewitness accounts suggest up to three people may have died.

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Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)

The Tunguska Event The Tunguska event was a large explosion of between three and 50 megatons TNT equivalent that occu rred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908. The explosion over the sparsely populated East Siberian taiga felled a large number of trees, over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest, and eyewitness accounts suggest up to three people may have died. The explosion is attributed to a meteor air burst, the atmospheric explosion of a stony asteroid about 50–60 metres (160–200 feet) wide.

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Why The Tunguska Event matters: Understanding our cosmic neighbourhood helps us learn about planetary formation, the conditions for life, and ultimately our place in the universe. The asteroid appro ached from the east-south-east, probably with a relatively high speed of about 27 km/s; 98,004 km/h (Mach 80). Though the incident is classified as an impact event, the object is thought to have exploded at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than hitting the Earth's surface, leaving no impact crater. The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, though much larger impacts are believed to have occurred in prehistoric times, including the Chicxulub impact that ended the Cretaceous period. An explosion of the Tunguska magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area. The event has been depicted in numerous works of fiction. The equivalent Torino scale rating for the impactor is eight: a certain collision with local destruction.

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Deep dive: The Tunguska Event Though the incident is classified as an impact event, the object is thought to have exploded at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than hitting the Earth's surface, leaving no impact crater. The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, though much larger impacts are believed to have occurred in prehistoric times, including the Chicxulub impact that ended the Cretaceous period. An explosion of the Tunguska magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area. The event has been depicted in numerous works of fiction. The equivalent Torino scale rating for the impactor is eight: a certain collision with local destruction. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)