A fiery explosion tore through the skies over Eastern Siberia on the morning of June 30, 1908, decimating more than 830 square miles of frozen taiga in what remains the largest asteroid-related blast in recorded history. Known as the Tunguska event, today it serves as a stark reminder of potential dangers presented by space objects that cross paths with our planet.
In commemoration of the 1908 incident, June 30 is recognized worldwide as International Asteroid Day, as part of an effort to raise awareness about asteroid hazards and to promote international cooperation in addressing their statistically rare, but still ever-present and potentially deadly reality.
Now, revealed in satellite imagery obtained last summer by NASA’s Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, the blast site as it appears today can be seen to show no direct signs of an impact, or even any damage from the blast which more than a century ago that had been large enough to level a modern city.
Eyewitness descriptions preserved from the time of the Tunguska event are still haunting today, with many reporting observations of the blazing fireball streaking across the sky at an estimated 60,000 miles per hour.
In Kirensk, observers saw a ball of fire descend toward the horizon, followed by deafening crashes and thunderous bangs. One witnessed described seeing the blazing object descending, and after several minutes, hearing “separate deafening crash[es] like peals of thunder” followed by “eight loud bangs like gunshots.”
“As it approached the ground, it took on a flattened shape,” one eyewitness reported, while another described the object as resembling “a flying star with a fiery tail” that “disappeared into the air.”
“I saw the sky in the north open to the ground and fire poured out,” another witness description reads. “The fire was brighter than the sun. We were terrified, but the sky closed again and immediately afterward, bangs like gunshots were heard. We thought stones were falling… I ran with my head down and covered, because I was afraid stones my fall on it.”
Another striking eyewitness report detailed how heat from the blast wave struck him, carrying him off the porch of the local trading station.
“Suddenly in the north … the sky was split in two, and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with fire,” the witness report reads. “I felt a great heat, as if my shirt had caught fire… At that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash… I was thrown twenty feet from the porch and lost consciousness for a moment…. The crash was followed by a noise like stones falling from the sky, or guns firing. The earth trembled…. At the moment when the sky opened, a hot wind, as if from a cannon, blew past the huts from the north.”
Damaging vegetation in the community, the witness also said that “many panes in the windows had been blown out and the iron hasp in the barn door had been broken” following the incident.
Hellbound and Down 