Russia's 'Cosmic Impact' A Mystery 100 Years On

A hundred years ago this week, a gigantic explosion ripped open the dawn sky above the swampy taiga forest of western Siberia, leaving a scientific riddle that endures to this day.

A dazzling light pierced the heavens, preceding a shock wave with the power of a thousand atomic bombs which flattened 80 million trees in a swathe of more than 2,000 square kilometres (800 square miles).

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[lovethesinner]

It was Tesla:

http://www.viewzone.com/tesla.tunguska.html

[OneWoman]

Ah, you beat me to it!

[sws3030]

Perhaps its the pod the Bush family arrived in.

[peterg76]

They figure it was a comet. Not a mystery.

[JRandomPoster]

Gonna have to go with the mini-black hole on this one ;)

[tomsfork]

Very likely a stony asteroid. Models seem to show a stony meteor would explode in the atmosphere, leaving little residue behind, hence no fragments to be found. Also, the explosion seemed to come from above. I would think a discharge of methane would cause an all-around explosion.

The explosion left several very curious depressions. These are found only in one other place on earth, the eastern United States, with it's center near Bladenboro, NC. Some of these depressions (called Carolina bays or pocosins) are miles across. If you would like to view some (there are over two million of them!) go to Google Earth or your favorite satellite mapping program, type in Bladenboro, NC, and look around, especially north and west of town.