Tunguska Explosion Caused by Asteroid Grazing the Earth, Say Scientists | Discover Magazine
In the early morning of Jun. 30, 1908, a massive explosion flattened entire forests in a remote region of Eastern Siberia along the Tunguska River. Curiously, the explosion left no crater, creating a mystery that has puzzled scientists ever since what could have caused such a huge blast without leaving any remnants of itself?
Now Daniil Khrennikov at the Siberian Federal University in Russia and colleagues have published a new model of the incident that may finally resolve the mystery. Khrennikov and co say the explosion was caused by an asteroid that grazed the Earth, entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle and then passing out again into space.
We argue that the Tunguska event was caused by an iron asteroid body, which passed through the Earth s atmosphere and continued to the near-solar orbit, they say. If they are correct, the theory suggests Earth escaped an even larger disaster by a hair s breadth.