Tunguska Over a City Would Erase It Entirely

In 1908, a bolide exploded over a remote region of Siberia with enough force to flatten 2,000 square kilometres of forest. Had it arrived over any major city on Earth, that city would no longer exist.

To understand the scale, Randall Carlson offers a benchmark most people can work with. The largest bombs in the American Cold War arsenal peaked at around 15 to 20 megatons. The Soviet Union tested a device in 1962 estimated at 50 to 55 megatons - so large and so heavy that they had no reliable way to deliver it. It existed essentially as a demonstration of destructive potential rather than a deployable weapon.

The Tunguska event released energy in that same order of magnitude, and it was not a particularly large object by cosmic standards. When researchers attempt to quantify what ancient impact events may have released, nuclear yield is the only human-made reference point capable of framing the numbers. The comparison is not rhetorical. It is the closest gauge we have.