The Tunguska event: no cometary signature in evidence.
Abstract
It is suggested that existing data on the 1908 Tunguska fall precludes an interpretation of the object as an either active or extinct comet fragment. Because a fireball of the Tunguska mass is not efficiently decelerated by the earth's atmosphere, it would at an entry velocity of about 30 km/sec have had to resist aerodynamic pressures greater than one billon dyn/sq cm before disintegrating. The inherently extremely fragile cometary material could not have survived a load of this magnitude. The data on Type II fireballs with prominent terminal flares are extrapolated, to estimate Tunguska's critical dynamic pressure at the same time of explosion as being of the order of 200 million dyn/sq cm, and its preexplosion velocity as about 10 km/sec, thereby ruling out a comet-like orbit. The Tunguska object is most consistently described as a small Apollo-type asteroid, 90-190 m across.
- Publication:
-
The Astronomical Journal
- Pub Date:
- September 1983
- DOI:
- 10.1086/113429
- Bibcode:
- 1983AJ.....88.1382S
- Keywords:
-
- Aerothermodynamics;
- Asteroid Capture;
- Atmospheric Entry;
- Meteoritic Damage;
- Tungusk Meteorite;
- Ablation;
- Aerodynamic Loads;
- Descent Trajectories;
- Light Curve;
- Orbital Elements;
- TUNGUSKA EVENT;
- COMETS;
- ORIGIN;
- ANALYSIS;
- EXPLOSIONS;
- COMPOSITION;
- SOURCE;
- VELOCITY;
- ABLATION;
- PRESSURE;
- ATMOSPHERE;
- MASS;
- FIREBALLS;
- PARENT BODY;
- ASTEROID;
- SIZE;
- Lunar and Planetary Exploration; Miscellaneous;
- Apollo Objects:Tunguska Event;
- Comets:Tunguska Event;
- Minor Planets:Tunguska Event;
- Tunguska Event:Apollo Objects;
- Tunguska Event:Comets;
- Tunguska Event:Minor Planets