Today is the centennial of the Tunguska event.

On June 30, 1908, a huge explosion occurred in the middle of Siberia, apparently the result of a meteorite or comet exploding in midair as it entered Earth’s atmosphere. It’s thought to be the largest recorded impact event in recent history – the energy released in the impact is on a scale with the largest of nuclear bombs. It caused an earthquake that would have measured about a 5 on the Richter scale and it affected weather all over Europe.

There’s a lot of mystery over the event, and speculation over it has appeared in many thrillers and science fiction books, not to mention movies and tv shows (such as the X-Files) and, more recently, the new Indiana Jones movie.

Coincidentally, I just – yesterday! – reread Storming the Cosmos, an excellent short story by Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker that describes a fictional Soviet expedition to the impact site and attributes the 1960 Nedelin disaster to alien technology found there. The date was actually mentioned several times in the story, as the expedition was meant to correspond the the 50th anniversary of the event, but it flew right over my head. (This is a pretty big coincidence, as I’ve only read it once before about four years ago – though it did make a significant impression on me – and picked up the issue for other reasons.)

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t seem to be up on the net anywhere. It’s published in the 1985 mid-December issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and in Bruce Sterling’s collection of short stories, Globalhead (which is worth buying anyway, because hey – it’s Bruce Sterling).  ETA: You can also find it in Rudy Rucker’s collection Gnarl (thanks, Rudy!).

Thanks to Edward Willett for his post mentioning the centennial – without it I’d have missed the date completely.