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On June 30, 1908, a giant fireball exploded over the forests of Tunguska in Siberia.

The impact leveled hundreds of miles of forest, and the exact cause is a bit of a mystery. At the time of the explosion, it was too difficult to reach this remote part of Siberia to look for clues about what might have happened. But finally in 1927, a scientist named Leonid Kulik led the first research expedition to investigate the scene. However, they didn't find a crater or any meteorite fragments, and the mystery remained unsolved. Scientists now believe either a comet or an asteroid exploded in the atmosphere instead of striking Earth. This created an air burst with shock waves powerful enough to knock down a forest.
Transcript
00:00On this day in space. In 1908 a giant fireball exploded in the skies over the
00:07forest of Tunguska in Siberia. The impact leveled hundreds of miles of forest and
00:11the exact cause is a bit of a mystery. At the time of the explosion it was too
00:16difficult to reach this remote part of Siberia to look for clues about what
00:19might have happened. But finally in 1927 a scientist named Leonid Kulik led the
00:24first research expedition to investigate the scene. However they didn't find a
00:28crater or any meteorite fragments and the mystery remained unsolved.
00:31Scientists now believe either a comet or an asteroid exploded in the atmosphere
00:36instead of striking earth. This created an airburst with shock waves powerful
00:40enough to knock down a forest. And that's what happened on this day in space.

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