The Tunguska Object: a Fragment of Comet Encke?
Abstract
It is pointed out that the solar longitude and equatorial coordinates of the apparent radiant of the Tunguska object (1908), as given by Zotkin (1966), are in good agreement with those of Comet Encke and the Beta Taurid shower, which is one of the two annual appearances of the broad meteor stream associated with Comet Encke. This suggests that the Tunguska object may have been a fragment of Comet Encke, and a trajectory prior to impact is reconstructed, and the encounter velocity is estimated at 31 plus or minus 2 km/sec. The tremendous explosion, shock wave, and forest fire without appreciable cratering also provide support of the cometary nature of the object. The Whipple (1968) conjecture that the body was an asteroidal pre-type I carbonaceous chondrite is equally in accord with encounter geometry and nature of damage, but recent data classify all but one of the Apollo asteroids as silicaceous or ordinary chondritic objects.
- Publication:
-
Bulletin of the Astronomical Institutes of Czechoslovakia
- Pub Date:
- 1978
- Bibcode:
- 1978BAICz..29..129K
- Keywords:
-
- Comets;
- Meteoroid Showers;
- Tungusk Meteorite;
- Chondrites;
- Earth Orbits;
- Meteorite Craters;
- Orbital Elements;
- Shock Waves;
- Taurid Meteoroids;
- Astrophysics