SPACE COLLISIONS, BIG AND SMALLby Robert Lamb, HowStuffWorks.com
 What happens when worlds collide? A distant star suddenly burns a little brighter. NASA throws another psychedelic photo gallery up on the Web. Star junkies get in a tizzy. Like a well-meaning dad taking a whiffle bat to the groin, collisions between cosmic bodies are amusing as long as we're not on the receiving end. Hitting Way Too Close to Home Fortunately, Earth has only experienced one particularly frightening collision in recent history. In 1908, a 10 to 15 megaton explosion shook central Siberia, felling an estimated 80 million trees and racking the region with seismic waves. Potentially 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima, the Tunguska Event was most likely caused by an asteroid or comet. Luckily, the Tunguska region was sparsely populated, but if the fragment had hit the rotating Earth as little as 4 hours and 47 minutes later, it would have decimated St. Petersburg -- then the capital of Russia's empire. Credit: Wikimedia Commons More on How Space Works from |
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Need More Space? Get It Here!Wide Angle: Cosmic CollisionsThis is part of the Discovery Space Wide Angle: Cosmic Collisions. Click below to explore more! Quiz: Cosmic Collisions
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