On the morning of June 30, 1908, the remote Siberian wilderness of Tunguska was shattered by a cataclysmic explosion. Without warning, a brilliant flash lit up the sky, followed by a deafening boom that could be heard hundreds of miles away. The blast levelled over 800 square miles of forest, toppling an estimated 80 million trees like matchsticks.
Yet, when scientists got there, they found no crater and no fragments of an impactor. The leading theory suggests that a meteoroid or comet, about 50-60 meters wide, entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded mid-air, creating a fireball and releasing energy equivalent to 185 Hiroshima bombs.
But why no crater? It’s believed the object disintegrated before reaching the ground, releasing a massive shockwave that flattened the forest. The Tunguska Event remains one of the most intriguing cosmic mysteries.
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