Chapter 10, Problem 84P

At 7:14 A.M. on June 30, 1908, a huge explosion occurred above remote central Siberia, at latitude 61° N and longitude 102° E; the fireball thus created was the brightest flash seen by anyone before nuclear weapons. The Tanguska Event, which according to one chance witness “covered an enormous part of the sky,” was probably the explosion of a stony asteroid about 140 m wide. (a) Considering only Earth’s rotation, determine how much later the asteroid would have had to arrive to put the explosion above Helsinki at longitude 25° E. This would have obliterated the city. (b) If the asteroid had, instead, been a metallic asteroid, it could have reached Earth’s surface, How much later would such an asteroid have had to arrive to put the impact in the Atlantic Ocean at longitude 20° W? (The resulting tsunamis would have wiped out coastal civilization on both sides of the Atlantic.)