Latest expert ruminations on Tunguska event:
[url]Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0903.3309: Tunguska-1908 and Similar Events in Light of the New Explosive Cosmogony of Minor BodiesThe key to why it left so little lasting damage is the nature of the explosion, says Drobyshevski. And the key to that is our improved understanding of the chemical make up of comets. He says the comet would have had a high hydrogen peroxide content and this would have dissociated explosively as it heated up to produce oxygen and water, breaking the comet apart. It was this explosion that devastated Tunguska.
"Significantly, the energy of the chemical explosion is substantially lower than the kinetic energy of the body," says Drobyshevski.
This explains the comet's relatively benign affect on the planet and solves many of mysteries associated with the event, he says.
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(capitalist pigs can't even get a bloody Ruskie quote right...)Update 30/3/09: Edward Drobyshevski writes to correct an error in this post. He says:
"In http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23234/ you write: "He says the comet would have had a high hydrogen peroxide content and this would have dissociated explosively as it heated up to produce oxygen and water, breaking the comet apart." It is incorrect statement. I never said about the hydrogen peroxide. I am saying on the solid-state solution (=clathrate) of hydrogen and oxygen (=products of the volumetric electrolytical decomposition of the dirty ice) in the low-temperature ice under the great pressure and continuous solid-state thermal convection in the parent planetary body (not in the comet nuclei themselves).Please, reread my articles and correct the text.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/ar ... ?nlid=1896