Remember the 1908 Tunguska event at this year's Asteroid Day



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There is not a week going by without hearing about news of another call with another small asteroid or a big meteor.

Last week, the Earth was hit by another small object: a small asteroid 3 or 4 meters wide that hit the ground in Russia.

There are now about 18,000 cataloged asteroids that make close passes to the Earth and there is not much we can do to prevent or predict when the next will endanger us.

Some say that there may be more than 40 large asteroids that still need to be detected a short distance from our planet and those who approach the Earth from the edge of the earth. They could have a size up to 3 miles in diameter.

If any of them hit the Earth, a fireball of nearly 40 miles would create a global debris storm, blackening the sun for years to come.

Many of you know the great impactor of asteroids, which hit the Earth 65 million years ago and has wiped out many life forms, including dinosaurs.

We were spared a repeat of this type of event, but an event that occurred in the northern part of Siberia in Russia is less well known.

The morning of June 30, 1908 Around 7:15 local time, in the deep forests of Siberia, a huge fireball, bright as the sun, exploded on the tiny villages of this remote region of Russia.

This may have been caused by a small asteroid or even smaller piece of a comet.

When the object exploded on the region, the kinetic energy inside the object was unleashed with an explosive force of between 10 and 15 megatons of light. energy.

This explosion, which occurred approximately three to six miles above the region, leveled an area of ​​more than 770 square miles. It's like clearing the entire area a little smaller than the state of Rhode Island in a flash!

This has been the biggest impact event in history and many do not even know it. No known human casualties, but many animals, trees and plants all perished in a moment.

The object of Tunguska may have been as large as 600 feet in diameter. As a reference, it is believed that the large asteroid meteorite of Arizona was about 200 feet in diameter.

It is thought that the explosion of Tunguska has made at least 80 million trees and that the explosion could be listed as a plus-5 on the Richter scale.

Today, NASA is looking for ways to alert us of all incoming objects like this one, but the truth is that there is not much to do to prevent this type of natural disaster.

So while you are going on your day on Saturday, know that it is now officially known as Asteroid Day 2018!

To print your own star chart of June 2018, click here. To see the satellites / dates / times of passage, click here.

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