What happened on June 30, 1908 in central Siberia? Was the atomic bomb–size airburst caused by antimatter? An extraterrestrial spacecraft? A wayward black hole?
FLATTENED: These trees, timbered over a diameter of about 50 miles (80 kilometers), radiated outward in a butterfly-shaped pattern from a central area where, oddly, some trees still stood, though scorched and stripped of their bark.
FELLED TREES: This picture from Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik's 1929 expedition shows the flattened trunks piled up a good distance away from the central blast site.
GROUND ZERO?: Some researchers think Lake Cheko, shown here, may be the water-filled crater blasted into the Siberian wilderness when the unearthly rock exploded in midair. Cheko is about five overland miles (eight kilometers) from the center of the detonation. University of Bologna, Italy (http://www-th.bo.infn.it/tunguska/)
LIKE MATCHSTICKS: In this grainy shot taken during Leonid Kulik's 1938 aerial survey, the knocked-over trees again clearly indicate the direction of the blast's shock wave.
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DEEP IMPACT: A massive space rock gouged out this crater about 50,000 years ago in the Arizona desert. Barringer Crater measures approximately 4,000 feet across (1,200 meters) and is 570 feet (170 meters) deep.
DEATH OF THE DINOSAURS: An artist’s impression of the 110-to 180-mile wide (175- to 290-kilometer) Chicxulub Crater spanning Central America's Yucatan Peninsula. A meteorite some six to 10 miles (10 to 15 kilometers) in diameter struck here about 65 million years ago. This cataclysm blasted sunlight-obstructing material into the atmosphere, effectively choking off plants from life-giving sunshine. Plant-eating dinosaurs died off, as well as the carnivores who fed on them. NASA
RECENT CRATERING: A meteorite punched out this 65-foot- (30-meter-) wide crater in Carangas, Peru, near Lake Titicaca in September 2007. Residents of the area reported small rocks raining on their roofs as well as a peal of thunder. Associated Press
SHOOTING STAR? OR THE NEXT TUNGUSKA?: Our planet gets pummeled by meteors continuously. This is especially apparent during the annual Perseid meteor shower in July and August as well as the Leonids of mid-November. Most of the rocks streaking across the sky are pebble-size and burn up in the atmosphere before reaching the ground. Scientists think a boulder-size meteor that was dozens of feet (meters) wide blew up over Tunguska in 1908. Mila Zinkova
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NEW YORK NEXT TIME?: The remote Tunguska region of Russia was sparsely populated at the time of the explosion. The blast devastated an area almost three times the size of all five boroughs in New York City.
STILL DOWN: In 1999 a group from the University of Bologna in Italy snapped shots of flattened trees still lying on the hinterland hillsides almost a century later. University of Bologna, Italy (http://www-th.bo.infn.it/tunguska/)
