.dleuty

gallery

This is my first and, probably last, attempt at working in the abstract.

At 7:17 AM on the morning of June 30, 1908, a mysterious explosion occurred in the skies over Siberia at an altitude roughly six kilometers in the atmosphere.

Realistic pictures of the event are unavailable. However, seismic vibrations were recorded by sensitive instruments as much as 1000 km (600 mi) away. At 500 km (300 mi), observers reported "deafening bangs" and a fiery cloud on the horizon. About 170 km (110 mi) from the explosion, the object was seen in the cloudless, daytime sky as a brilliant, sun-like fireball.

Imagine a large bolder slamming into the dark reaches of our atmosphere more than 150 km high at speeds above Mach 25. In the thin atmosphere pieces of the rock are instantly to changed to sparkles of light, before becoming completely enveloped in in a superheated plasma.

Behold: the first few seconds of entry.