Hypothesis on the nature of the Tunguska meteorite

It is shown that all the specific features of the Tunguska catastrophe in 1 908 can be explained by an explosion of a methane-air cloud which was initi ated by a stony or iron meteorite whose mass was of the order of several te ns 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 i nto the atmosphere is sufficient to form such a cloud. The meteorite fell s everal tens of kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion.