THE TUNGUSKA IMPACT

We all know about the Hiroshima bombing, right! Imagine if there is a destruction of almost 200 times the intensity of the nuclear bomb which was dropped on the city of Hiroshima.

And what if I told you that this happened for real.
And that too by an asteroid which never even struck the earth's surface.

It's shocking, isn't it!

Well, it actually happened in the year 1908. The Tunguska event was a large explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908. 

Its intensity was about 10-15 megaton, to give a rough estimate, the bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima had an intensity of only 15 kilotons, so just imagine the destruction it might have caused. But due to the remoteness of the occurrence site, not much damage to humans was reported!

But the fireball is believed to have been 50-100m wide. It depleted 2,000 sq km of the taiga forest in the area, flattening about 80 million trees.

The earth trembled. Windows smashed in the nearest town over 35 miles (60km) away. Residents there even felt the heat from the blast, and some were blown off their feet.

© Britannica 

And yet, over a hundred years later scientists are still wondering about what exactly took place on that fateful day. Many are convinced that it was an asteroid or a comet that was responsible for the blast. But very few traces of this large extraterrestrial object have ever been found.

There wasn't much initial research when this disaster occurred due to the very hostile Russian climate and the political hindrance. Only some local newspapers published it. The world was still to be devastated by the wrath of world wars.

Anyway, after many years, when actually the researchers examined the spot, they all came up with different theories.

Some suggested that it was a meteor, but as no alien particles were found, this theory was discarded.

 Again the researchers came up with the concept of comet striking, and it seemed to be quite satisfactory as the comets are made up of ice and dust particles.

Few even suggested that it was a sort of paranormal activity, but it was quite an outlandish idea.

Like these, there were many theories given, like the black hole striking the earth, matter-antimatter collision, and even the nuclear explosion but as these theories were baseless they were immediately discarded.

After almost 100 years, in 2013 a team of Ukrainian researchers again went to the site, and this time they found somewhat a base for their explanation. They observed some microscopic particles there and found out that it was from the year 1908, and they even proved that these particles were meteoric.

So what do you think the story ends here?

The answer is no, as there are thousands of meteoric showers every year and the scientists were not able to prove that the collected particles were from the Tunguska event only!

However many types of research took place after this and the researchers came to the conclusion that the reason behind this event was an asteroid.

The perfect reason for this event is still to be explained!

Prof. Gareth Collins of Imperial College, London quite correctly remarked about this event — "That limits our understanding".