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Do you not consider Tunguska an explosion? It’s always described as such. IIRC, it never even hit the ground. Sure, a lot of the damage was caused by the air being compressed from above, but it created an air burst, which would have released a lot of energy in every direction.

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No, it's a misnomer as with any other meteor.

If you were to witness the breakup from the bolide's reference frame and without all the rushing air you'd never call it an explosion.

> and without all the rushing air

That's the exploding bit though. You don't need containment, you just need the the airburst. A hyper-heated pocket of air that then expands rapidly is itself an explosion.

>then expands rapidly

Except it doesn't. The breakup has roughly the same dynamics as dirt spreading as it gets out of a tip truck. The shockwave is not produced by the outward motion, it barely has any speed.

You're conflating the outward motion of the rock with the outward motion of the air.

The shockwave is traveling at the speed of sound.

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