# Happy Tunguska Day! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 1, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835 "2008-07-01T01:13:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/1 "2008-07-01T01:13:01Z")
100 years ago today, [the Tunguska event](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event), probably a small asteroid exploding in the atmosphere, happened over Siberia. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/2 "2008-07-01T01:14:23Z")
That goodness that didn’t happen h ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/3 "2008-07-01T01:19:39Z")
The anniversary got a run in the “On this Day” column here in yesterday’s paper. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/4 "2008-07-01T01:56:48Z")
Researchers have apparently [confirmed](http://en.rian.ru/science/20080630/112598958.html) the meteorite theory. Coincidentally, today also marks the 100th anniversary of the morse code [S.O.S. signal](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4244924.ece). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/5 "2008-07-01T02:07:47Z")
I wrote an article about this whikle an undergraduate, which I was never able to get published. But learned a lot. It’s not at all clear to me from the article **mindfield** quotes exactly how “acid rain” of any sort proves this was an asteroid – You’d think Whipple’s hypothetical comet could have brought nitrogen as well. (Although the balance of opinion has been shifting towards asteroid for many years now)Guess I’ll have to read the article. Kulik never found a crater, it’s true, but neither did anyone else. That lack of a crater was why so many people thought that something other than an asteroid was involved. Although not many people know it (and, to my knowledge, no secondary sources report it), Kulik _did_ claim to have found a tiny piece of meteorite. Decades later, around 1960, Russian teams found huge numbers of micrometeorites scattered in an ellipse to the northwest of the center of the blast, of both stony and metallic composition and bearing the signs of being melted by very high temperatures. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/6 "2008-07-01T02:08:01Z")
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.] That goodness that didn’t happen h [/QUOTE] You know, another “event” might not be such a bad thing. Think of it as a chance for a “clean install” for life on earth. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/7 "2008-07-01T02:29:07Z")
[QUOTE=blondebear] You know, another “event” might not be such a bad thing. Think of it as a chance for a “clean install” for life on earth. [/QUOTE] Well, if we’re talking another Tunguska-sized event it could certainly wipe out a major city and much of the surrounding suburbs, but that might be only 10-20 million people. It’d be the single worst disaster in recorded history, to be sure, but barely a drop in the bucket with respect to the total world population. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/8 "2008-07-01T04:41:51Z")
Damn! You guys beat me to that. There’s another article about it [here](http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0806/29tunguska/). ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/9 "2008-07-01T04:55:01Z")
I thought it was aliens? ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/10 "2008-07-01T08:25:33Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] It’s not at all clear to me from the article **mindfield** quotes exactly how “acid rain” of any sort proves this was an asteroid – You’d think Whipple’s hypothetical comet could have brought nitrogen as well. (Although the balance of opinion has been shifting towards asteroid for many years now)Guess I’ll have to read the article. [/QUOTE] I don’t really think the article is meant to distinguish between meteoroid and comet fragment, merely between ‘chunk of rock falling from the skies’ and spaceship, antimatter or mini black hole (and whatever else harebrained explanation may have cropped up). ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/11 "2008-07-01T08:45:19Z")
[QUOTE=Wile E] I thought it was aliens? [/QUOTE] No, it was Tesla’s 1908-style Death Ray. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/12 "2008-07-01T15:00:56Z")
[QUOTE=riker1384] No, it was Tesla’s 1908-style Death Ray. [/QUOTE] What did Tesla have against Russian trees? ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/13 "2008-07-01T15:16:11Z")
[QUOTE=Wile E] What did Tesla have against Russian trees? [/QUOTE] According to [Morozko](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058374/), Russian trees beat you up, follow you into your house, and try to shove you in an oven. Bastards. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/14 "2008-07-01T15:43:13Z")
[QUOTE=Wile E] I thought it was aliens? [/QUOTE] Aliens invented the SOS? Was that before or after they crashed in Siberia? ---
**Author:** ![butler1850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@butler1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butler1850)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/15 "2008-07-01T19:26:21Z")
[QUOTE=Wile E] What did Tesla have against Russian trees? [/QUOTE] Actually, he was 4 hrs and 47 minutes too early (bad timer. He used a 1907 version). (read the article to find out what would have happened at the real scheduled time). His lifelong hate of things with Peter in the name, however, was undaunted. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-tunguska-day/454835/16 "2008-07-01T21:12:34Z")
[QUOTE=Attack from the 3rd dimension] Aliens invented the SOS? Was that before or after they crashed in Siberia? [/QUOTE] “Save Our Saucer.” A couple of seconds before.