Tunguska event aftermath
Photographer: Leonid Kulik expedition
Date: 1927 (1908 event)
Location: Tunguska, Siberia, Russia
Leonid Kulik led a Soviet scientific expedition to the remote Podkamennaya Tunguska River region of Siberia in 1927, nearly twenty years after the largest impact event in recorded history. On June 30, 1908, a small asteroid or comet estimated between 50 and 80 meters in diameter exploded in the atmosphere at an altitude of 5–10 kilometers, releasing energy equivalent to approximately 10–15 megatons of TNT — over a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Kulik's photographs of the aftermath showed approximately 2,000 square kilometers of forest flattened in a radial pattern pointing away from the explosion's epicenter. The remoteness of the area meant no humans were killed. The event remains the largest impact event in recorded human history.
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