101 years later and a new "theory" has risen. dang all the TV time devoted to watching the reports now might be wrong... There are some LINks in the story at the site...

Space Shuttle and Strange Clouds Key to Mysterious 1908 Explosion

Editorial Director
SPACE.com Robert Roy Britt

space.com – Mon Jun 29, 10:01 am ET
Ever since something generated a huge explosion over Siberia in 1908, flattening an area as big as a large city, scientists have been trying to figure out what caused it.


Among the enduring mysteries: Following the explosion, the night skies shone brightly for several nights across Europe all the way to London, 3,000 miles away.


While there are some wild theories about the Tunguska event -- involving a UFO or black hole or a bizarre death ray -- astronomers have long known the culprit was either a comet or an asteroid. Based on the lack of a crater, scientists say the object did not smack into the ground, but rather exploded above the surface, the damage being done by the resulting shock wave.


But which type of space rock was it?


New evidence from an unlikely source -- water vapor in the exhaust plumes of space shuttles launched a century later -- points to a comet.


Mysterious clouds


The potential solution comes courtesy some strange clouds that scientists have only recently begun to understand.


Noctilucent clouds are brilliant, and visible only at night. Made of ice particles, they are Earth's highest clouds, forming in the mesosphere some 55 miles over the polar regions during the summer months when, up there, it is around minus 180 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 117 degrees Celsius).


The ephemeral noctilucent clouds are relatively new, at least to scientists. According to Gary Thomas, a professor at the University of Colorado, they were first seen in 1885, about two years after the powerful eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia, which hurled plumes of ash as high as 50 miles (80 kilometers) into Earth's atmosphere. They were photographed by astronauts aboard a space shuttle flight in 2003.


And in fact, space shuttle launches have been found to cause or enhance the formation of noctilucent clouds.


About 97 percent of the exhaust from a shuttle launch turns into water, a by-product of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuel. A single shuttle flight pumps 300 metric tons of water vapor into the Earth's thermosphere, and the water particles have been found to travel to the Arctic and Antarctic regions.


Noctilucent clouds were tied to the launch of Endeavour (STS-118) on Aug. 8, 2007. And high-altitude clouds were detected over Antarctica shortly after the fateful launch of Columbia, which along with its crew was lost during re-entry. Columbia's plume was 650 miles long and 2 miles wide and reached Antarctica in three days.


Cornell University engineering professor Michael Kelley figured the bright night skies after the Tunguska event must have been the result of noctilucent clouds. And since they require water vapor, Kelley assumed a comet was the culprit.


But physics suggests otherwise.


How it might have happened


The explosion on June 30, 1908, flattened some 500,000 acres (2,000 square kilometers) of Siberian forest. Estimates are the Tunguska Event was as strong as at least 10 megatons of TNT and perhaps a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.


Just last year, many experts were figuring it was an asteroid.


But Kelley's team thinks a comet fits better, since comets are loaded with water ice (asteroids are mostly rock and metals). The comet would have started to break up at about the same altitude as the release of the exhaust plume from the space shuttle following launch, they calculate. In both cases, water vapor was injected into the atmosphere.

But how did the water vapor travel so far?

"There is a mean transport of this material for tens of thousands of kilometers in a very short time, and there is no model that predicts that," Kelley said. "It's totally new and unexpected physics."

Kelley and his colleague say a new model of upper-atmospheric physics is needed. They propose counter-rotating eddies with extreme energy. Once the water vapor got caught up in these eddies, it traveled very quickly -- close to 300 feet per second, they write in the June 24 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"Our observations show that current understanding of the mesosphere-lower thermosphere region is quite poor," said Charlie Seyler, Cornell professor of electrical engineering and a co-author of the research paper.

Meanwhile, the infamous Tunguska mystery has taken yet another turn.

"The evidence is pretty strong that the Earth was hit by a comet in 1908," Kelley said.
LINKS AT THE SITE
Newsreel: Tunguska Expedition
Gallery: Earth's Meteor Craters
Video: Exploding Space Rocks
Original Story: Space Shuttle and Strange Clouds Key to Mysterious 1908 Explosion

Space Shuttle and Strange Clouds Key to Mysterious 1908 Explosion - Yahoo! News

__________________
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. - Samuel Johnson.. (1709 - 1784) Faith is what mine is built upon..

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Could have been a comet, could have been a meteor - though the comet theory does explain why no meteor fragments, even small ones have ever been found at Tunguska.

I'm a bit leary about this: Must have been... and assumed... pretty bold words to use.

I know that computer modeling (and even pre-computer modeling) was done that proves that a meteorite exploding in the atmosphere could have caused the exact damage and pattern that resulted from the event, though it couldn't be proven that it was a meteor that caused it, primarily because there was no evidence of a meteor.

I'm sure there are other possible explanations for both the bright skies and the lack of meteor particles... he's probably right, but I wouldn't be comfortable using such absolutes in my hypothesis.

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"Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous."
-William Proxmire



“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” - Mark Twain

I think that it was a comet "skipping" across the Earth. I think that a comet came close enough to have a dramatic effect, but without making actual contact.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

Giving a liberal facts is like throwing bacon at a vegetarian. All it does it piss off the vegetarian and waste good bacon.

Like I said a new theory..... Thats the science so many believe in.. But good point made.

__________________
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. - Samuel Johnson.. (1709 - 1784) Faith is what mine is built upon..

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

I have always thunk that.. Even though the early documentary's would have one believe an asteroid big enpugh to have blown up above ground was the cause. And I shouted at the TV "no a$$wipe a comet".......

__________________
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. - Samuel Johnson.. (1709 - 1784) Faith is what mine is built upon..

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

The other theories don't even seem to hold water. I watched a special on it the other day... the other theories included aliens smashing their mothership into the asteroid before it hit earth ; dark matter coming into contact with earth's atmosphere, virtually the same scenario as the asteroid, only with matter that exists in another dimension, which would also explain why no asteroid pieces, cept if it exists in another dimension, why/how would it contact the earth in our known dimensions... and probably no more credible than the alien theory was one that it was a theoretical type of volcanic explosion - really no evidence for that either. Which leaves only one theory that can be proven (of the four the documentary discussed) something smashing into our atmosphere... but not leaving a trace of a meteor...

__________________
"Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous."
-William Proxmire



“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” - Mark Twain

Thanks for making my point........

__________________
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. - Samuel Johnson.. (1709 - 1784) Faith is what mine is built upon..

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

so it could be a comet (likely)... or dark/anti matter... maybe an anti-matter comet even.

__________________
"Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous."
-William Proxmire



“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” - Mark Twain

Or an alien space ship that ran out of foo juice.

Or some back woods lumber pesent making his own super chain saw out of black powder and one big measuring cup, with a short fuse. If that is found out to be the cause remember who said it first....lol

__________________
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. - Samuel Johnson.. (1709 - 1784) Faith is what mine is built upon..

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

The tiny bit of 2nd hand testimony about this indicates that it wasn't an impact in a single area, but rather more like a cosmic strafing - a line of smaller explosions with one big one. If this did happen, it most likely would have busted up the comet leaving little evidence behind as it scattered across the solar system.

__________________
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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

Giving a liberal facts is like throwing bacon at a vegetarian. All it does it piss off the vegetarian and waste good bacon.