Abstract:
It is shown that all the specific features of the Tunguska catastrophe in 1908 can be explained by an explosion of a methane-air cloud which was initiated by a stony or iron meteorite whose mass was of the order of several tens of tons. The meteorite gently flied at an altitude of several kilometers with a velocity of 1–2 km/sec. A single ejection of 200 ktons of methane into the atmosphere is sufficient to form such a cloud. The meteorite fell several tens of kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion.
