The 'Tunguska Event' as it is known occurred over a large area of Siberia. An area of over 800 square miles was flattened with trees (about 80 million of them) felled in specific directions. The long held (but unproven) belief/theory from the 1930's is that it was the result of a meteorite or comet particle consisting predominantly of ice and dust entering the earths atmosphere and exploding before impact in the atmosphere. There was no impact crater and little evidence to be found of any object responsible for the huge blast.
Now, thanks to the exhaust plume of the Space Shuttle being studied, a rational explanation for the cause has been established. The water vapour generated by the Space Shuttle is some 300 tons. This disperses throughout the atmosphere and forms noctilucent clouds; formed at high altitude (the mesosphere) and in extreme cold temperatures. This type of cloud was noticed and studied at the time of the event.
Several conspiracy theories exist regarding the event but the NASA research appears to have found a plauisble explanation for the event... here.
Related to it possibly is Lake Cheko which is a crater lake from the same time period and in the tragectory path of the comet.
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