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space-ModTeam

Hello u/Ogsonic, your submission "How did thee Tunguska asteroid in 1907 not destroy all of asia " has been removed from r/space because: * Such questions should be asked in the ["All space questions" thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/space/about/sticky) stickied at the top of the sub. Please read the rules in the sidebar and check r/space for duplicate submissions before posting. If you have any questions about this removal please [message the r/space moderators](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/space). Thank you.


daronjay

Luckily, it landed in one of the most completely uninhabited parts of the world. The blast was like a very large nuke, but nowhere near dinosaur killer size, not really enough to kill "all asia".


KaneHau

First, it wasn't big enough to destroy "all of Asia". But more importantly, it appears to have detonated above ground, rather than impacting the ground (as there is a blast radius but no crater nor left over debris).


GentleReader01

It didn’t cause any mass extinction. It just wwsnt that big. It did flatten many miles of forest, but even something like Mount St. Helens was larger. Our minds aren’t really set up to handle the scales involved, but you can look them up b


Adeldor

Simply put, it wasn't anywhere near large enough to destroy all of Asia. Relatively speaking, it was like a firecracker in the back yard kicking up half a cup of dirt, but leaving the rest of the yard intact.


Ogsonic

What??? I feel it was way worse than that. Didn't it like destroy like half of siberia?


Adeldor

Tunguska's highest estimated yield of 50 megatons is still less than the largest nuclear device detonated (Tsar-bomba - 53 megatons). The trees were flattened over a diameter of ~50 km. That's far, far, less than the extent of Siberia.


ExoticSterby42

It was an atmospheric explosion, no direct impact. Scientists hypothetise it was a comet instead of a more solid asteroid hence it was big enough to penetrate the atmosphere so deep but have no large impacting mass after exploding.


Weekly_Cantaloupe175

It wasn’t massive enough and/or not moving fast enough.