TUNGUSKA EVENT MAY HAVE BEEN AN ASTEROID

Oct 23, 1996 4:37 p.m. EDT
Source: Nando Times

LONDON (Oct 23, 1996 4:37 p.m. EDT) - A mysterious explosion over remote Siberia in 1908 that flattened forests for miles aroundand confounded experts was most likely caused by an asteroid hitting Earth, a Russian physicist said on Wednesday.

Scientists had suspected the blast over Tunguska must have been caused by an asteroid or large meteorite exploding on impact with the atmosphere at a height of six to 10 km (four to six miles).

But no crater and no fragments were ever found.

Vladimir Svetsov of the Russian Academy of Sciences,, writing in the science journal Nature, said his models showed this is exactly what he would expect if an asteroid or similarly large object smashed into Earth.

Its fall would not be slowed by the drag of the atmosphere, unlike a smaller meteorite which survives more intact as its fall is broken.

Svetsovsaid the faster and more powerful collision of an asteroid would create enough force to completely obliterate any fragments.

In addition, he wrote: "Radiation energy is decidedly large -- quite comparable with that of a nuclear explosion."


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