June 30, 1908.
One of the most remarkable events in history happened on this date. And it's mostly forgotten.
At
7:14 a.m. a MASSIVE explosion occurred near the Tunguska river in
Russia. I'm not exaggerating. The force was somewhere between 5-30
megatons. Think about that: an explosion between 150 to 1000 TIMES the
power of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. And it happened 37 years before
the nuclear age began.
And, purely by chance, it happened in a fairly uninhabited part of the Earth.
To
this day its exact cause is unknown, and it's simply called "The
Tunguska Event." It's generally believed to have been a meteorite or
comet that exploded before hitting the ground.
The
shock wave it sent through the ground was a 5.0 on the Richter scale.
Every tree in an 8 km (5 mile) radius from the center was killed, and
the force of the explosion covered a total of 830 square miles (2,130
square km). An estimated 80 million trees were knocked over by the
force- all of them pointing away from the center. A few were left
standing, scorched black, with all their branches stripped off. People
were knocked off their feet, and windows shattered, hundreds of miles
away. The pressure wave was measured as far away as England. For the
next several months there was a change in the density of the planet's
upper atmosphere.
An eyewitness 40 miles south of the
explosion, reported that "At breakfast time I was sitting by the
house at Vanavara Trading Post, facing north. I suddenly saw that
directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in
two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest. The split in the
sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire.
At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it, as if my shirt
was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong
heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the
sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few
yards. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led
me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling
or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the
ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the
sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons,
which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged crops.
Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn the iron
lock had snapped."
There have been other impacts in
recorded history, but none this powerful. And, over 100 years later, the scars are still there.
1921: 13 years after the event.
2008: 100 years after the event.
And, just remember: we live in a solar system full
of flying objects.
