A Brief History
On June 30, 1908, the Tunguska region of Siberia, Russia was rocked by an incredible explosion that stunned people hundreds of miles away. Perhaps 80 million trees in the Taiga Forest were flattened, and as many as three people died. Luckily, the event occurred in an unpopulated area.
Digging Deeper
Covering an area of 830 square miles, the event was caused by an above ground explosion, three to six miles high, of an asteroid, probably 160 to 200 feet in diameter. The airburst left no crater on the ground and initially puzzled investigators. The asteroid is believed to have been flying at 60,000 mph!
Windows were broken and people knocked off their feet at least 200 miles away, and the ground shock waves, and air waves were detected more than a thousand miles away. Much larger impacts have occurred in prehistoric times, and we never know when it can happen again.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Do you believe an asteroid will hit the Earth in your lifetime?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Bauer, Conrad. Tunguska: An Apocalyptic Event Beyond Belief. Maplewood Publishing, 2016.
Bruno, Andy. Tunguska: A Siberian Mystery and Its Environmental Legacy. Cambridge University Press, 2022.
The featured image in this article, a stamp of the Tunguska event, is not an object of copyright according to article 1259 of Book IV of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation No. 230-FZ of December 18, 2006.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
