Podcast: The Tunkguska Event

by Nancy Atkinson on December 23, 2011

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Fallen trees from the Tunguska Event in 1908.

On June 30th, 1908 “something” exploded over the Tunguska region of Siberia, flattening thousands of square kilometres of forest, and unleashing a force that rivaled the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. What was it? What could unleash that kind of destructive energy? And will it happen again?

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“Tunguska Event” shownotes on the Astronomy Cast website.

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About Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast and works with the Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.

Tagged as: Podcasts, Tunguska

Anonymous

“On June 30th, 1908 “something” exploded over the Tunguska region of Siberia, flattening thousands of square kilometres of forest, and unleashing a force that rivaled the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.”
Perhaps you know something I don’t, but to my knowledge, NO nuclear weapons had ever been detonated prior to June 30th, 1908.
Sorry, IVAN3MAN
Thanks for the episode, this subject never fails to tweak my curiosity.
- PHILIP BARGER
  
  Nuclear Weapons of Earth Origin…………. Think bigger..
- Sam Srejber
  
  Wow your pretty dumb, not once was it stated that a nuclear weapon was detonated on that date..hence the “something”. It was in COMPARISON. Back to primary school?
  - Anonymous
    
    “Wow your pretty dumb” Er.. That should be ‘you’re’.
    Also, if you read my comment, I didn’t state that the ‘something’ was a nuclear weapon. The quoted sentence implies that it was being compared to nuclear detonations ‘ever detonated’.
    That means prior to.
    - HeadAroundU
      
      I think it’s ambiguous at best and it’s up to you to figure out what is meant by it. “that had ever detonated” would clearly imply prior things.
Brian Custer

I read a story about Nicola Tesla’s “death ray” that leads my curiosity. It is quite interesting.
Anonymous

It’s quite likely that the Tunguska explosion was simply the detonation of a massive quantity of methane gas that had leaked into the atmosphere from a ground ruptured fault. The accumulated cloud of gas was eventually ignited by natural atmospheric charges and the shock wave from the explodion knocked over the forest.
- Torbjörn Larsson
  
  Possible perhaps, but likely? The leading hypotheses is a meteoroid airburst, mostly because they occur frequently.
  
  A “speculative hypothesis”, here “a great many other hypotheses for the Tunguska event have sprung up, none of which are accepted by the scientific community” is the Kundt hypothesis of methane release, mainly because they are not known to occur naturally. Also, the number of conditions to satisfy here (“eventually ignited”, atmospheric charges”, “resealed fault”, “no residual flame”) is staggering and makes it further unlikely.
Carlos Pereira

a) “…quite likely that the Tunguska event was simply the detonation of a massive quantity of methane gas …”
b) “… Nicola Tesla’s “death ray”…”
c) “… NO nuclear weapons had ever been detonated prior to June 30th, 1908…”
d) “… nuclear weapons of Earth Origin …”

So, please clarify !
Mind Hacker

It’s great to see this story being mentioned on universetoday. May be all you “science people” are going to condemn my comment for being “non-scientific” but here is another possible [metaphysical] exaplanation – http://lawofone.info/results.php?search_string=tunguska&search_type=any&ss=1
- Torbjörn Larsson
  
  Warning, crackpot link. “Anti-scientific” is the more appropriate term for those.
  
  And no, it isn’t even possible (“fission reactor” before the technology was invented and without radioactive trace).

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