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On June 30, 1908, a small asteroid exploded high above Siberia, releasing energy equal to thousands of atomic bombs and flattening 800 square miles of forest. The site lay deep in remote taiga, and with Russia soon consumed by war and revolution, no expedition attempted to reach it for nearly two decades. When geologist Leonid Kulik finally arrived in 1927, he found millions of trees knocked down in a radial pattern but no crater, since the asteroid had disintegrated in a mid-air explosion. From Tunguska scientists learned that even a relatively small asteroid, only about 130 feet wide, can unleash city-level devastation. The event proved that airbursts can rival ground impacts in destructive power, while leaving no crater or large fragments behind, making them difficult to detect and study. It also underscored the importance of tracking near-Earth objects to give advance warning of future threats.