Tunguska: One Blast. 80 Million Trees. No Crater.Episode 71:35
The 830-Square-Mile Butterfly
Later surveys confirm Kulik's failure but uncover a destruction pattern shaped like a gigantic butterfly.
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Transcript
The Tunguska blast hit Siberia. A herder was blown into a tree—and later died.
Tunguska event struck Siberia June 30th, 1908, about 7:15 a.m.
At a trading station, a witness described the northern sky filling with fire. The sky split in two.
Modern models estimate 10 to 20 megatons released in an airburst some 6 miles high.
At Vanavara, one witness felt heat as if his shirt had caught fire.
Witnesses reported forest fires and trees blown over for miles.
In 1921, the Soviet Academy sent a geologist to the site, but he couldn't reach it.
He reached Tunguska in 1927 and found burned trees stripped of branches and bark.
Later surveys outlined a butterfly-shaped destruction zone covering 830 square miles.
Millions of trees were knocked down, yet the blast left no impact crater.
The stripped trunks made the missing object feel more haunting than visible wreckage.
Later expeditions found extraterrestrial-looking microparticles but couldn't prove a Tunguska link.
Researchers had trees, witness accounts, seismic traces, infrasound, and under 100 reports.
One recorded witness remembered the instant the ordinary morning broke apart.
Semyonov said: axe raised, northern sky split apart, fire appeared above the forest.
Where it leaves off
With no crater and no conclusive fragments, investigators began asking whether Tunguska had been an active comet.
Sources
- 1908 SIBERIA EXPLOSION: Reconstructing an Asteroid Impact from Eywitness Accounts - Planetary Science Institutepsi.edusecondary
- 115 Years Ago: The Tunguska Asteroid Impact Event - NASAnasa.govsecondary
- NASA/Technical Memorandum (NASA/TM--220174) 2018ntrs.nasa.govsecondary
- Vurdalak | Witness: S. B. Semyonovvurdalak.comprimary
- AN ARCHIVAL AND ORAL HISTORY OF THEhou.usra.edusecondary
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