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On June 30 , 1908 , an asteroid flatten an estimate 80 million trees in Siberia over 830 square air mile ( 2,150 straight km ) . Dubbed the Tunguska case , it is considered the biggest asteroid impact in record history . Yet no one has ever found the asteroid fragments or an wallop internet site .
The asteroid dismount up the sky in a remote , sparsely dwell region near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River . It unleash a 10 to 15 megaton explosion — similar in size to the 1954Castle Bravo atomic bombtest , the fifth - declamatory atomic explosion in history . " The sky was split in two , and high above the woodland the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with flaming , " aneyewitness report .
The Tunguska event is considered to be the biggest asteroid strike in recorded history
One popular theory is that the asteroid formed Lake Cheko , a fresh water lake about 5 miles ( 8 kilometers ) from the explosion epicenter . The lake is about 1,640 feet ( 500 metre ) wide and 177 base ( 54 m ) deep . Luca Gasperini , research director at the National Research Council of Italy , and colleagues said the lake ’s cone - like shape and depth resembled an impact volcanic crater . In a study release 2012 in the journalGeochemistry , Geophysics , Geosystems , they gauge that the sediments at the bottom of the lake had been build for 100 years , while grounds of trees at the bottom of the lake indicate the waterhole covers an old forest .
But some experts were not convinced . In 2017 , researchers led byDenis Rogozin , from the Institute of Biophysics at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences , carried out theirown analysisand reason out that lake deposit were at least 280 to 390 years old , " significantly older than the 1908 Tunguska Event . "
And in a new study published May 2 in the journalDoklady Earth Sciences , Rogozin and fellow show more evidence to rebut the idea Lake Cheko is the Tunguska asteroid ’s shock site .
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antecedently , many researchers believed Lake Cheko ’s strange cone figure was unique in the region , giving system of weights to the idea that an asteroid mould it . But Rogozin and colleague analyzed two nearby lake — Zapovednoye and Peyungda — that sit 31 miles ( 50 km ) and 37 miles ( 60 km ) from the suspected encroachment site . Both are also cone determine , they found .
" The divergence in the age of the lake sediments arrange into question the impact origin of these lakes — this would take the arrival of three almost selfsame space bodies at different times , which is extremely improbable feed that the lakes are located in almost the same place on Earth , " the investigator wrote .
Daniel Vondrák , who canvass lake ecosystems at Charles University in Prague , secernate Live Science in an email that he is convinced by Rogozin ’s grounds .
However , the cone-shaped shape of the lakes is n’t the only grounds that Cheko was form by the Tunguska event , Gasperini say .
In a theme post to the preprintserver arxivin 2018 ( which still has not been peer go over ) , Gasperini and his squad hypothesized that Tunguska was due to a " debris - pot " asteroid — a structurally light mashup of fragments from a monolithic asteroid .. As a solvent , the asteroid split into two part — one around 197 human foot ( 60 m ) widely , the other around 20 to 33 feet ( 6 to 10 one thousand ) wide . The smaller of these two break into Earth , forming Lake Cheko , they write .
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The squad detected a 33 - metrical foot - encompassing ( 10 m ) anomaly at the bottom of the lake that may be a remnant fragment of the asteroid . By drilling to the lake center , someone could test the composition of the anomaly to affirm that hypothesis . However , Gasperini ’s team can no longer get at the site due to the warfare inUkraine .
" The Russian scientists could easily do this test , rather of continue to print articles showing data similar to ours with very confutable interpretations , " Gasperini told Live Science in an email .
What could have happened to the asteroid?
If Cheko was n’t form by the Tunguska impact crater , then what materialise to the asteroid that set blast to the skies more than a century ago ? A paperpublished in 2020 in the diary Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggested a large iron asteroid pass through Earth ’s ambience , thencurved away from Earthwithout breaking up . This , the team order , would explain why no trace of the asteroid has ever been found .
Another paperposted to arxivlast calendar month put forward yet another hypothesis — that the asteroid broke asunder and scattered across the landscape painting . While many fragments would have burnt up in the atmosphere , the team said small chunks could have subsist and hit Earth over a " strewn battlefield . " . This paper suggests careen from the asteroid could be about 10 to 12 miles ( 16 to 19 km ) northwest of the epicentre , " even if the mud and vegetation could have made any trace disappear . "
