![]() As other researchers have pointed out, an icy comet could also have created the explosion, leaving few fragments. Despite the meteoroid’s body didn’t hit the Earth (thus no impact crater was created), it is still classified as a meteorite impact. While the study shows a glancing impact is a possible solution, there's no way to prove it's the true cause. Tunguska event: a meteorite impact Today, we know that the Tunguska explosion was caused by the atmospheric explosion of a stony meteoroid about 50-60 meters (160-200 feet) in size. The rapid compression of air near the asteroid would be enough to create the blast region observed. It could still be orbiting the sun to this day. If the object made a shallow impact on the atmosphere, coming to within 10 kilometers of the Earth's surface, it would have remained largely unscathed and returned to space to enter a near-solar orbit. ![]() They found that the most likely scenario is an iron asteroid about 200 meters in size. They considered bodies ranging in size from 50 to 200 meters and composed of either ice, stone or iron. To do this, they modeled several scenarios. The team looked at whether a similar glancing impact could have created the Tunguska explosion. The meteor was seen across parts of Utah and Wyoming. It was a rock the size of a truck that skipped across the upper atmosphere. The most famous event was the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972. Meteors have been known to deflect off the atmosphere before. Expedition to the region was guided by the space photos, the researchers scanned a wider territory in the vicinity of the Poligusa village for parts of the space object. Credit: Leonid Kulik expedition, public domain The expedition, organized by the Siberian Public State Foundation Tunguska Space Phenomenon completed its work on the scene of Tunguska meteorite fall on August 9, 2004. Photograph of fallen trees seen by a 1929 expedition to the region. The 1908 Tunguska explosion: atmospheric disruption of a stony asteroid. Instead, it glanced off Earth's atmosphere. But a new study argues that there are no fragments because the asteroid didn't fragment after all. This has led some to explore causes, such as a massive leak of natural gas, or even the explosion of an alien spacecraft. Despite several searches, nothing has been found. This would explain why no large impact crater has been found.īut fragments of the Chelyabinsk were found soon after impact, and one would expect Tunguska fragments to have reached Earth. Given the size of the impact region, it's estimated that the original asteroid was nearly 70 meters across. Given what we know, the most likely cause is an airburst asteroid strike in which the asteroid explodes in the atmosphere, similar to the Chelyabinsk meteor strike in 2013. By the 1960s, it was clear the event was similar to an airburst nuclear explosion, with an energy of about 5 megatons. It was then that the impact region was mapped and early searches for an impact crater were undertaken. Scientific investigations of the event didn't occur until the 1920s. The region is sparsely populated, and the event only had a handful of witnesses. One of the challenges in studying the Tunguska event is its remoteness. Claims of Tunguska Meteorite Fragments Ridiculous, Scientist Says.
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