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Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Volume 44, 2016

From Tunguska to Chelyabinsk via Jupiter

Abstract

The Tunguska event remained enigmatic for almost 100 years until the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994 helped to resolve this enigma and allowed us to adequately interpret the more recent Chelyabinsk event. Airbursts typically occur if a meteoroid entering Earth's atmosphere is 10–100 m in diameter, i.e., its energy ranges from 0.5 (Chelyabinsk) to 20 (Tunguska) Mt TNT. All this energy is released in the atmosphere with strong shock waves generated during the entry reaching the surface and causing substantial damage. Atmospheric plumes are capable of dispersing extraterrestrial materials worldwide. Modern civilization is extremely vulnerable to those relatively small disturbances that recur on a decadal timescale and are still difficult to predict.

Keyword(s): airburst, atmosphere, fragmentation, meteoroid, shock waves
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2016-06-29
2024-04-19
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From Tunguska to Chelyabinsk via Jupiter
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 44, 37 (2016); https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-060115-012218
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-earth-060115-012218
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-earth-060115-012218
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