On this day in space! June 30, 1908: Tunguska meteor explodes over Siberia

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

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.

Huge Russian Meteor Blast is Biggest Since 1908 | Infographic

Soviet cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev of the Soyuz 11 space mission, June 1971. (Image credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

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.

1st Meteorites from 1908 Tunguska Explosion Possibly Found

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. People around the world commemorate this event by celebrating World Asteroid day.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.