19257

After reading your article, I am sure others must have also wondered if the “Tunguska meteor” that struck in Siberia in June 1908 might have been a mirror meteor. The mirror-asteroid strike described in the article sounds very much like descriptions of the event: tremendous energy and no impact crater. If a mirror object were to strike the surface of the moon, Mars, or Venus, would this cause an explosive event that could be easily distinguished from a normal impact that would create a crater? Is there any evidence of such events?

David Reynolds
Porter, Texas

Some researchers have indeed speculated that the Tunguska event might have been caused by a mirror object striking Earth. I don’t know of any way that this can be proven, but looking for explosions of any sort that have no apparent visible source could yield evidence of mirror projectiles, some researchers argue .—R. Cowen