…To the comet or asteroid (cosmological identity still unknown) that exploded over the Tungunska river on June 30th of 1908. Happy 96 years of going boom!
Yet the trees at ground zero lived.
[insert Chrono Trigger reference here]
How very… thoughtful… of you.
No, the tress at ground zero and the other ones at about a 30 miles range were instantly calcinated. Other farther ones caught fire.
Ren is referring to one of the most famous natural misteries of the past century. Nobody knows EXACTLY what exploded over Tunguska- only that it exploded with the force of a nuclear bomb, at a time when such things were still theories, at best.
Good thing Tunguska was located in Siberia, in one of the most uninhabited areas of the world. It was so remote it took YEARS for a scientific expedition to reach the place. The trees were knocked down in a circular pattern away from the center, for miles; yet there was no crater! And the trees at the center where not knocked down (but they WERE damaged.)
As you can imagine, all sorts of theories, including Sci-Fi ones, have come up to try to explain it. The favorite one seems to be that it was a damaged UFO! (But realistically, it must’ve been a meteor of some kind.)
Will is right. If you go study this thing, you’ll only get crazy from the many theories. As for the damage… People who were 60 kilometers away from ground zero had their clothes in fire. The trees near the explosion were “petrificated” (calcinated) and bent down! It’s as if someone gently pushed the trees by the middle untill they lay each over the other.
The impact was so big that it caused quakes in Europe. The shockwaves of Tungunska itself went around the globe twice!
The population nearby the Tungunska river did see something before the destruction wave, though. A fireball in the sky. A similar (yet thousands times less destructive) case happened in Brazil, but here they found out that it was a meteorite.
You sure about them trees? I remember at least one supposed meteor explosion where the tress were unharmed directly around the crater.
That’s as easy to believe as a car-bomb explosion where the people directly around it would be unharmed too.