Was there a Tunguska meteorite? In what year and where did the Tunguska meteorite fall?
The Tunguska meteorite is a kind of space object that caused an air explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in. The event occurred on June 17, 1908, but it has not yet been solved.
Tunguska meteorite is also called the Tunguska phenomenon, and the abbreviation TKT is also used - Tunguska cosmic body.
In this article we will look at different versions of the mysterious explosion that occurred at the beginning of the last century, and try to understand: it was an artificial phenomenon, or only forces were involved in it.
The fall of the Tunguska meteorite
In the early morning of June 17, 1908, a bright flash was seen in the sky over Siberia. After this, according to eyewitnesses, a certain object with a fiery tail began to approach the ground at great speed.
A few seconds later there was a deafening explosion that was heard over a great distance. It was 2000 times greater than the power of the atomic bombs dropped on.
Consequences of the disaster
As a result of the Tunguska explosion, about 2,000 km² of forest were destroyed, along with and. The shock wave was so strong that it circled the entire planet twice.
Barometers recorded a sharp jump in atmospheric pressure. Those who lived in the territory from Siberia to Western Europe could see white nights that lasted for 3 days.
An interesting fact is that German scientists noticed noctilucent clouds, consisting of a cluster of ice particles that appeared as a result. But at that time no eruption occurred anywhere.
Surprisingly, no one paid enough attention to this incident. Only decades later did scientists begin to take a more serious interest in the so-called Tunguska meteorite.
However, after much research, they were unable to find out the nature of the explosion. This gave rise to more questions and versions regarding the phenomenon that came to be called the Tunguska meteorite.
Eyewitness accounts
Fortunately, residents who lived near the incident were interviewed. They all unanimously insisted that even a few days before the explosion, some strange flashes similar to lightning could be seen in the sky.
After the explosion, the earth shook violently. Then a loud boom was heard for about 20 minutes. There were also those who said that in fact there were several explosions, not just one.
Interestingly, Russian, European and American seismographic stations recorded an unusual vibration of the earth's crust that day.
People claimed that after the incident there was deathly silence. The sky darkened, and the leaves on the trees first turned yellow, and after a few hours turned black. In addition, in the direction of Podkamennaya Tunguska, a silvery wall could be seen for 8 hours.
However, since the descriptions of eyewitnesses still differed from each other, they had to be treated with caution.
The site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite
Today you can see many new trees at the site of the Tunguska meteorite fall. According to experts, their active growth is caused by genetic mutations.
However, such mutations are never found in areas where meteorites fall, which leads to certain thoughts. Some scientists suggest that the fall of the Tunguska meteorite caused a powerful electromagnetic field.
Today you can still see fallen rows of trees lying in the same direction. Their scorched trunks serve as a vivid reminder of an unusual disaster.
Photos from the site of the Tunguska meteorite fall Not long ago, scientists again began to actively explore the site of the Tunguska meteorite fall. They still had more questions than answers. An interesting fact is that the place where the meteorite fell resembles the shape of a bird or butterfly.
Where did the Tunguska meteorite actually fall?
If we assume that a certain cosmic body actually fell to the earth, then a huge crater should have formed on its surface. But no one has been able to discover it so far.
Scientists who adhere to official version, believe that the space object most likely exploded in the air, after which its small parts scattered hundreds of kilometers.
That is why there are no traces of a meteorite at the epicenter of the explosion.
8 km from the explosion site is Lake Cheko, the depth of which reaches 50 m. Some foreign geologists have put forward the version that the lake appeared after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite.
In this regard, a group of Russian geologists took particles of lake sediments for examination and found out that Cheko’s age is almost 300 years, and maybe more.
The comet burned up before falling
A number of scientists suggest that the comet could have burned up in the atmosphere, since it consisted of ice and space dirt. The explosion occurred at an altitude of about 5 km above the earth's surface.
But here everything is not so smooth. The fact is that scientists were able to discover perfectly preserved remains of comet mud and water in peat.
Black and white
The famous Russian writer and journalist Andrei Tyunyaev is a supporter of the existence of black and white holes.
Black holes absorb any objects that are near them, after which they transform them into space. In turn, white holes have the ability to form this matter. This creates a kind of cycle.
It follows from this that the Tunguska meteorite could be the result of the activity of a white hole, which could have formed not far from or will appear from the bowels of our planet.
It is worth noting that white holes are still too poorly studied, and many scientists do not believe in their existence at all.
Damn cemetery
Physicists also contributed to the study of the Tunguska meteorite. And it all started with one interesting and at the same time frightening story that happened approximately 30 years after the disaster.
An interesting fact is that not far from the Tunguska phenomenon there is anomalous zone, which is called the Devil's Cemetery.
So, one day local shepherds lost several cows, which they were driving to the river for watering. Noticing the loss, they went in search of the animals. They soon discovered a deserted area, devoid of any vegetation.
It was there that the shepherds saw torn cows and many dead birds. The dogs began to bark frantically and eventually ran away.
After this, the men took the cows to use their meat. However, the beef turned out to be inedible. If you believe this, the shepherds and dogs died from an unknown disease.
The site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite was explored by many different expeditions. Four of them went missing, and the rest allegedly died after visiting the Devil's Cemetery.
According to local residents, at night in the area of the Tunguska phenomenon you can see unusual lights and hear someone’s screams.
Tunguska meteorite and UFO
Speaking about the Tunguska meteorite, it is worth mentioning one more version, despite its absurdity. According to science fiction writer Kazantsev, the cause of the explosion was an alien ship that crashed above the earth.
To all this, Kazantsev adds that the aliens allegedly deliberately sent their ship to the taiga, and not to a populated area, in order to avoid the loss of life.
How can we not remember the mysterious one, which has been talked about a lot lately.
Kazantsev also placed special emphasis on the fact that the Tunguska explosion occurred in the air. In principle, scientists confirm this idea.
After conducting a medical examination of local residents, doctors did not record a single case of radiation sickness, which spoke in favor of an air explosion.
Conclusion
Since researchers have still not been able to come to a consensus regarding the Tunguska meteorite, this has led to the emergence of many theories.
Today there are more than a hundred of them. There is even a version according to which the culprit of the Tunguska explosion is, who conducted unique experiments with electricity. However, it is not yet possible to reliably confirm this version.
Still Tunguska cosmic body is of keen interest to scientists all over the world. Perhaps in the future, thanks to new discoveries and modern technology, we will be able to get to the bottom of the truth and find out what happened near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 17, 1908.
Today, the Tunguska meteorite is widely represented in culture, which is generally not surprising, given the human penchant for various riddles and secrets. He is mentioned in films computer games and various music videos.
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The Tunguska meteorite in 1908 produced an explosion or even a series of explosions above the ground. But the mystery of his appearance has not yet been solved. From that moment to the present day, scientists only continue to build hypotheses and assumptions, during which more and more interesting circumstances and mysteries are revealed. Which Interesting Facts about the Tunguska meteorite known today?
- Krasnoyarsk researchers in 2006 discovered parts of quartz with unknown writings. Incomprehensible hieroglyphs on the stones were applied without the use of manual labor. Scientists from Krasnoyarsk and Moscow analyzed the composition of the cobblestone substance. The results revealed the unearthly origin of this quartz. Engineer Yuri Lavbin puts forward a version about sending information to our planet from other civilizations, but the mission was spoiled by an unsuccessful landing.
- Metal rods were found at the crash site unknown origin
. Various assumptions have been made about their appearance. Scientist Lavbin claims that these are parts of a spaceship.
- The nature of the explosion is controversial. Trees according to all theories of physics and practical observations should lie in parallel. But this is not observed in relation to the Tunguska phenomenon. This means that both the explosion itself and its origin are phenomena unknown to science.
- Researchers different countries Over the course of many years of expeditions, only 12 conical holes were discovered at the scene. Their depth, origin and even exact quantity have not been studied. However, in last years Scientists paid attention to these holes. During research, some scientists put forward a version about the terrestrial origin of the explosion.
- The most modern version of what happened is the hypothesis of scientist Gennady Bybin. The physicist has been studying the phenomenon for more than 30 years. He puts forward a version about an ice comet. This was prompted by entries in the diaries of the first researcher of the anomaly, Leonid Kulik. The planet became like a hot frying pan for the comet. The ice suddenly melted and explosions occurred.
- Expeditions led by Kulik hoped to find a meteorite crater. But instead, at the epicenter of the explosion, they found trees fallen like a fan, and in the very center the trunks stood upright, but without branches. Calculations made using computer programs showed - the explosion occurred several kilometers from the earth's surface.
- Exists interesting hypothesis about the connection between Nikola Tesla and the explosion over Taiga that occurred on June 30, 1908. Two months before the event, the scientist was engaged in experiments on energy transfer through the air. Tesla claimed that he could cover Robert Peary's expedition to the North Pole. Another proof of the American scientist’s involvement in the Tunguska explosion is a request to the Library of the US Congress about the least populated parts of Siberia.
- Science fiction writers have developed their own versions. Alexander Kazantsev described the phenomenon in Taiga as the fall of an alien ship from Mars.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in their work “Monday Begins on Saturday” describe the events of 1908 as a phenomenon of time reversing. The spaceship did not land, but rather took off.
- The energy of the Tunguska phenomenon is equal to the explosion of several thousand nuclear bombs. The rich vegetation of the Taiga turned into a cemetery for many years. At the center of the explosion, a couple of years later, an increased rebirth of the forest was discovered. This indicates radiation exposure.
- Geologists from Ukraine and the USA in 2013 studied the composition of grains of the supposed Tunguska meteorite. After much research and analysis, they concluded that belonging of the celestial body to the class of carbonaceous chondrites.
- Australian Curtin University scientist F. Bland refutes the connection between the found stones and a meteorite from space. The grains have a suspiciously low concentration of iridium, and the peat, according to research, does not date back to 1908. Conclusion: the stones could have entered the soil before the explosion or after it.
- Near the village of Vanavara, on October 9, 1995, the Tungussky State Nature Reserve was opened by decree of the Russian government. It contains all the artifacts of the incident and the diaries of eyewitnesses.
- Two brothers from among the local residents, Chekaren and Chuchanchi, described what happened to them on June 30, 1908. From the story they were in the tent and sleeping. We woke up at the same time from a shock and heard a whistle and felt a gust of wind. A few moments later there was a second blow of energy, as a result they were scattered throughout the plague. When they got out of the house, there was a strong roar - the earth was shaking. The brothers saw scary picture: glowing from fire coniferous trees fell, grass and moss burned. The hunters felt intense heat. The next morning they saw the second sun in the sky.
- The next two nights after the anomaly, residents of the entire Northern Hemisphere observed an unusual glow in the sky. Some people couldn't sleep because of the bright light. With such lighting one could read a book.
- There are about 30 versions of what happened, but the Tunguska anomaly remains a subject of debate among scientists and a mystery for all mankind. A researcher from Krasnoyarsk is sure that the explosion was caused by natural gas, and that it was set on fire by a meteorite. Physicists V. Zhuravlev and M. Dmitriev explain the anomalous phenomenon by an explosion of ball lightning.
Photo: Tunguska meteorite fall site (presentation)
The fall of the Tunguska meteorite
Year of the Fall
June 30, 1908 A mysterious object, later called the Tunguska meteorite, exploded and fell in the earth's atmosphere.
Crash site
Territory Eastern Siberia between the Lena and Podkamennaya Tunguska rivers forever remained as crash site The Tunguska meteorite, when a fiery object flared up like the sun and flew several hundred kilometers, fell on her.
Photo: the alleged fall site of the Tunguska meteorite
The sound of thunder could be heard for almost a thousand kilometers around. The flight of the space alien ended with a grand explosion over the deserted taiga at an altitude of about 5 - 10 km, followed by a complete collapse of the taiga in the area between the Kimchu and Khushmo rivers - tributaries of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, 65 km from the village of Vanavara (Evenkia). The inhabitants of Vanavara and those few Evenki nomads who were in the taiga became living witnesses to the cosmic catastrophe. The place where the Tunguska meteorite fell can be seen at Google map maps
Size
Tunguska meteorite caused a blast wave, which felled a forest within a radius of about 40 km, killed animals, and injured people. Its size was 30 meters. Due to the powerful light flash of the Tunguska explosion and the flow of hot gases, a forest fire broke out, completing the devastation of the area. In a vast space bounded from the east by the Yenisei, from the south – by the line “Tashkent – Stavropol – Sevastopol – northern Italy – Bordeaux”, from the west – by the Atlantic coast of Europe, unprecedented in scale and completely unusual light phenomena unfolded, which went down in history under the name “light nights of the summer of 1908." The clouds, which formed at an altitude of about 80 km, intensely reflected the sun's rays, thereby creating the effect of bright nights even where they had not been observed before. Throughout this gigantic territory, on the evening of June 30, night practically did not fall: the entire sky was glowing (it was possible to read a newspaper at midnight without artificial lighting). This phenomenon continued for several nights.
Weight
Based on the scattering of particles, their concentration and the estimated power of the explosion, scientists estimated as a first approximation the weight of the space alien. It turned out, The Tunguska meteorite weighed about 5 million tons.
Expeditions
In the history of mankind, in terms of the scale of observed phenomena, it is difficult to find a more grandiose and mysterious event than Tunguska meteorite. The first studies of this phenomenon began only in the 20s of the last century. Four expeditions, organized by the USSR Academy of Sciences and headed by mineralogist Leonid Kulik, were sent to the site where the object fell. However, even 100 years later, the mystery of the Tunguska phenomenon remains unsolved.
In 1988, participants of the research expedition of the Siberian Public Fund " Tunguska space phenomenon"under the leadership of corresponding member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts (St. Petersburg) Yuri Lavbin, metal rods were discovered near Vanavara. Lavbin put forward his version of what happened - a huge comet was approaching our planet from space. Some highly developed civilization in space became aware of this . Aliens to save the Earth from global catastrophe, sent out their sentinel spaceship. He was supposed to split the comet. But, unfortunately, the attack of the most powerful cosmic body was not entirely successful for the ship. True, the comet's nucleus crumbled into several fragments. Some of them fell to Earth, and most of they passed by our planet. The earthlings were saved, but one of the fragments damaged the attacking alien ship, and it made an emergency landing on Earth. Subsequently, the ship's crew repaired their car and safely left our planet, leaving on it failed blocks, the remains of which were found by the expedition to the site of the disaster.
Photo: Fragment of the Tunguska meteorite
Behind long years searching for debris Tunguska meteorite Members of various expeditions discovered a total of 12 wide conical holes in the disaster area. No one knows to what depth they go, since no one has even tried to study them. However, recently, researchers for the first time thought about the origin of the holes and the pattern of tree collapse in the area of the cataclysm. According to all known theories and practice itself, fallen trunks should lie in parallel rows. And here they are clearly unscientific. This means that the explosion was not classical, but something completely unknown to science. All these facts allowed geophysicists to reasonably assume that a careful study of conical holes in the ground would shed light on the Siberian mystery. Some scientists have already begun to express the idea of the earthly origin of the phenomenon.
In 2006, according to the president of the Tunguska Space Phenomenon Foundation, Yuri Lavbin, in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River at the site of the Tunguska meteorite fall Krasnoyarsk researchers discovered quartz cobblestones with mysterious writings.
According to researchers, strange signs are applied to the surface of quartz in a man-made manner, presumably through the influence of plasma. Analyzes of quartz cobblestones, which were studied in Krasnoyarsk and Moscow, showed that quartz contains impurities of cosmic substances that cannot be obtained on Earth. Research has confirmed that the cobblestones are artifacts: many of them are fused layers of plates, each of which contains signs of an unknown alphabet. According to Lavbin's hypothesis, quartz cobblestones are fragments of an information container sent to our planet extraterrestrial civilization and exploded as a result of an unsuccessful landing.
Hypotheses
It was expressed more than a hundred different hypotheses what happened in the Tunguska taiga: from the explosion of swamp gas to the crash of an alien ship. It was also assumed that an iron or stone meteorite containing nickel iron could have fallen to Earth; icy comet core; unidentified flying object, starship; giant ball lightning; a meteorite from Mars, difficult to distinguish from terrestrial rocks. American physicists Albert Jackson and Michael Ryan stated that the Earth encountered a “black hole”; some researchers suggested that it was a fantastic laser beam or a piece of plasma torn off from the Sun; French astronomer and researcher of optical anomalies Felix de Roy suggested that on June 30 the Earth probably collided with a cloud of cosmic dust.
Ice comet
The most recent is ice comet hypothesis, put forward by physicist Gennady Bybin, who has been studying the Tunguska anomaly for more than 30 years. Bybin believes that the mysterious body was not a stone meteorite, but an icy comet. He came to this conclusion based on the diaries of the first researcher of the “meteorite” fall site, Leonid Kulik. At the scene of the incident, Kulik found a substance in the form of ice covered with peat, but did not attach much importance to it, since he was looking for something completely different. However, this compressed ice with flammable gases frozen into it, found 20 years after the explosion, is not a sign of permafrost, as was commonly believed, but proof that the ice comet theory is correct, the researcher believes. For a comet that was scattered into many pieces after a collision with our planet, the Earth became a kind of hot frying pan. The ice on it quickly melted and exploded. Gennady Bybin hopes that his version will become the only true and last one.
Meteorite
However, most scientists are inclined to believe that it was still meteorite, exploded above the surface of the Earth. It was his traces that, starting in 1927, were searched for in the area of the explosion by the first Soviet scientific expeditions led by Leonid Kulik. But the usual meteor crater was not at the scene of the incident. Expeditions discovered that around the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, the forest was felled like a fan from the center, and in the center some of the trees remained standing, but without branches.
Subsequent expeditions noticed that the area of fallen forest had a characteristic butterfly shape, directed from east-southeast to west-northwest. total area There are about 2,200 square kilometers of fallen forest. Modeling the shape of this area and computer calculations of all the circumstances of the fall showed that the explosion did not occur when the body collided with the earth’s surface, but even before that in the air at an altitude of 5–10 km.
Tesla
"At the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries, hypothesis about the connection between Nikola Tesla and the Tunguska meteorite. According to this hypothesis, on the day the Tunguska phenomenon was observed (June 30, 1908), Nikola Tesla conducted an experiment on transmitting energy “through the air.” A few months before the explosion, Tesla claimed that he could light the road to the North Pole expedition famous traveler Roberta Peary. In addition, there are records in the journal of the US Library of Congress that he requested maps of the “least populated parts of Siberia.” His experiments to create standing waves, where a powerful electrical pulse was said to be concentrated tens of thousands of kilometers away Indian Ocean, fit well into this “hypothesis”. If Tesla managed to pump a pulse with the energy of the so-called “ether” (a hypothetical medium, which, according to the scientific concepts of past centuries, was assigned the role of a carrier of electromagnetic interactions) and “swing” the wave with the resonance effect, then, according to the myth, a discharge with a power comparable to nuclear explosion."
Other hypotheses
Writers also gave their versions of the Tunguska phenomenon. Famous science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev described the Tunguska phenomenon as a disaster of a spaceship flying towards us from Mars. Writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in their book “Monday Begins on Saturday” put forward a humorous hypothesis about contrarians. It explains the events of 1908 in reverse time, i.e. not by the arrival of the spacecraft to Earth, but by its launch.
| date | Author. Hypothesis. | The essence of the hypothesis. Problems. |
| 1908 | Ordinary | Descent of the god Ogda. Flight of the fiery kite. Repetition of the tragedy of Sodom and Gomorrah The beginning of the 2nd Russian-Japanese War. |
| 1908 | I. K. Solonina | Enormous size aerolite |
| 1921 | L. A. KulikMeteoritic | Based on the results of a survey of eyewitnesses, it was concluded that a meteorite fell in the Podkamennaya Tunguska region. |
| 1927 | L. A. Kulik | Iron meteorite Fragments of an iron meteorite associated with Comet Pons–Winnicke fell. Problems: Why did the high-altitude explosion occur? Where are the remains of the meteorite? What caused the Western White Nights? |
| 1927 | Meteorite transformation | For the first time, people started talking about the version of the meteorite turning into jets of fragments and gas. |
| 1929 | A meteorite flying tangentially | The body fell at a small angle to the horizon, did not reach the Earth, broke up and experienced a rebound, rising a hundred kilometers upward. The fragments, having lost speed, fell in a completely different place. She explained the lack of physical evidence, white nights, etc., but the calculations did not confirm it. |
| 1930 | F. Whipple Explosion of a comet nucleus | The Earth collided with a small comet (the nucleus of a comet is a “lump of dirty snow”), which completely evaporated in the atmosphere, leaving no trace. Problems: How could a comet sneak up unnoticed? The comet could not have penetrated that deep into the atmosphere. |
| 1932 | F.de RoyV. I. VernadskySpace objects | The Earth collided with a compact cloud of cosmic dust. |
| 1934 | Kometnaya | Collision with a comet's tail. |
| 1946 | A. P. KazantsevAlien | Explosion of atomic engines of an alien ship. Problems: No traces of radiation detected. |
| 1948 | L. LapazK. CowanU. Libby Antimatter meteorite | The Tunguska meteorite is a piece of antimatter that experienced annihilation in the atmosphere, i.e. completely converted into radiation due to nuclear processes. Problems:Annihilation should have occurred in the upper atmosphere. No annihilation products (neutrons and gamma rays) were found. “The entire Universe is material” (A.D. Sakharov) |
| 1951 | V. F. Solyanik | Positively charged iron-nickel meteorite The meteorite moved with an inclination angle of 15-20 degrees, at a speed of >10 km/s. Intense mechanical interaction occurs between the Earth's surface and a flying meteorite, reaching several million tons. Approaching 15-20 km to the Earth's surface, the dark matter began to discharge, producing various mechanical damage. |
| 1959 | F. Yu. ZiegelAlien | The meteorite explosion is similar to the destruction of the planet Phaeton, once located between the planets Mars and Jupiter. A UFO exploded at the crash site. As arguments, he gave increased level radioactivity at the epicenter of the explosion and the maneuver of the Tunguska body when moving through the atmosphere at almost 90 degrees. Problems: No traces of radiation detected. |
| 1960 | G. F. Plekhanov Biological (comic) | Detonation explosion of a cloud of midges with a volume of more than 5 cubic kilometers. |
| 1961 | Alien | Disintegration of a flying saucer. |
| 1962 | Meteorite-electromagnetic | About the electrical breakdown of the ionosphere to Earth caused by a meteor. |
| 1963 | A. P. NevskyElectrostat. meteorite discharge | According to his calculations, a body with a radius of 50-70 meters moved at a speed of 20 km/sec, then discharged at an altitude of about 20 km. was almost completely destroyed. |
| 1963 | I. S. AstapovichRicochet of a comet | Due to the flat trajectory (inclination angle of about 10 degrees) and the minimum flight altitude, which was about 10 km, the small comet, having passed through the Earth’s atmosphere and causing destruction during braking, lost its shell, and the core entered interplanetary space along a hyperbolic trajectory. |
| 1964 | G. S. Altshuller V. N. ZhuravlevaAlien | The explosion was caused by a laser signal that came to Earth from the civilization of the planetary system of the 61st star from the constellation Cygnus. |
| 1965 | A. N. StrugatskyB. N. StrugatskyAlien | An alien ship with a reverse flow of time. |
| 1966 | Meteorite | The fall of a superdense piece of a white dwarf. |
| 1967 | V. A. EpifanovNatural | Due to a local earthquake or geological displacement of the earth's layers, a crack formed in the crust, into which dust, fine suspended oil and methane hydrates escaped mixed with “blue fuel” and ignited from lightning. |
| 1967 | D. Bigby Alien | Having discovered ten small moons with strange trajectories, he came to the conclusion: in 1908, a UFO arrived, a capsule with a crew separated from it and exploded over the taiga, the ship was in earth orbit until 1955, waited for the crew and lost altitude, finally, “automatic machines went off,” and there was an explosion. |
| 1968 | Natural | Dissociation of water and explosion of detonating gas. |
| 1969 | Kometnaya | The fall of a comet made of antimatter. Problems: “The entire Universe is material” (A.D. Sakharov) |
| 1969 | I. T. ZotkinMeteoritic | The radiant of the Tunguska fireball is similar to the radiant of the daytime meteor shower Beta Taurid, which in turn is associated with Comet Encke |
| 1973 | A. JacksonM. RyanBlack hole | The Tunguska meteorite was actually a miniature “black hole” of very small mass. In their opinion, it entered the Earth in Central Siberia, passed through, and emerged in the North Atlantic region. |
| 1975 | G. I. PetrovV. P. StulovKometnaya | Only a loose comet nucleus is capable of penetrating so deeply into the Earth's atmosphere. Density should be no more than 0.01 g/cm. |
| 1976 | L. KresakKometnaya | The Tunguska object was actually a fragment of Comet Encke - an old and faint comet with the shortest orbit of all the comets moving around the Sun - that broke off several thousand years ago. |
| 80s | L. A. MukharevNatural | A giant ball lightning exploded, which arose in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of powerful energy pumping by ordinary lightning, or sharp fluctuations in the atmospheric electric field. |
| 80s | B. R. GermanNatural | Lightning generated by cosmic dust invading earth's atmosphere at cosmic speed. By its nature, Tunguska ball lightning was a cluster type of lightning. |
| 80s | V. N. SalnikovNatural | The explosion is associated with the emergence of a powerful electromagnetic “vortex” (underground thunderstorm) from the depths of the earth. A natural analogue of this phenomenon is ball lightning. |
| 80s | A. N. Dmitriev V. K. Zhuravlev | The Tunguska meteorite is a plasmacide that broke away from the Sun. |
| 1981 | N. S. KudryavtsevaNatural | The release of a gas-mud mass from a volcanic pipe located near Vanavara. |
| 1984 | E. K. Iordanishvili Meteorite | A celestial body flying at a low angle to the surface of our planet became heated at an altitude of 120-130 km, and its long tail was observed by hundreds of people from Lake Baikal to Van Avara. Having touched the Earth, the meteorite “ricocheted”, jumped several hundred kilometers upward, and this made it possible to observe it from the middle reaches of the Angara. Then the Tunguska meteorite, having described a parabola and lost its cosmic speed, actually fell to Earth, now forever. |
| 1984 | D. V. Timofeev Natural | Explosion 0.25-2.5 billion cubic meters natural gas. A plume of gas, escaping from the bowels of the Earth in the area of the Southern Swamp on June 30, 1908, formed an explosive mixture. He was set on fire by lightning or a fireball. |
| 1986 | M.N. Tsynbal | A meteorite consisting of metallic hydrogen. A block of metallic hydrogen weighing 400,000 tons, instantly dispersed, combined with oxygen to create an explosive mixture of large volume. |
| 1988 | A. P. KazantsevAlien | The Tunguska meteorite is a landing module that separated from the Black Prince starship, a mysterious satellite discovered in Earth orbit by Californian astronomer John Bagby in 1967. |
| Beginning 90s | M. V. TolkachevKometnaya | The Tunguska comet could consist of gas hydrate compounds instantly released under the influence of a sharp change in temperature. |
| Beginning 90s | V. G. Polyakov Meteorite | The meteorite consisted of sodium of cosmic origin. Penetrating into the dense layers of the atmosphere containing water vapor, the meteorite entered into a chemical reaction with it. A chemical explosion occurred in the critical saturation region. |
| Beginning 90s | A. E. ZlobinKometnaya | The iron core of a long-period comet that flew to us from the Oort cloud had superconductor properties due to its low temperature. This largely determined the conditions for its penetration into the Earth’s atmosphere, and unusual character explosion. |
| 1991 | Natural | An unusual earthquake accompanied by some light phenomena. |
| 1993 | K. Chaiba P. Thomas K. TsanleKometnaya | A body of cometary nature should collapse at an altitude of 22 km. A small rocky asteroid, approximately 30 meters in diameter, would collapse at an altitude of about 8 km. |
| 1993 | Meteorite | The fall of an ice meteorite, which, having discharged the electrical charge accumulated on its surface, flew off into space again. |
| 90s | A.Yu. Olkhovatov Natural | The Tunguska phenomenon was a type of earth earthquake that arose at the site of a geological fault in the area of the Kulikovo paleovolcano. |
| 90s | A. F. Ioffe E. M. DrobyshevskyKometnaya | A chemical explosion of an explosive mixture of oxygen and hydrogen released from cometary ice by electrolysis after its repeated passage around the Sun. |
| 90s | V. P. EvplukhinMeteoritic | The meteorite was an iron ball with a radius of 5 meters and a mass of 4,100 tons, surrounded by a silicate shell. Due to braking in dense layers of the atmosphere, a current was induced in it, then a sharp heating and sputtering of the substance occurred. The subsequent airglow was caused by the release of large amounts of ionized iron. |
| 1995 | Meteorite | About antimatter entering the Earth's atmosphere. |
| 1995 | Meteorite | About a special meteorite with a carbonaceous chondride. |
| 1995 | A. F. Chernyaev | Ethereal-gravity bolide The meteorite did not fall to the Earth, but rather flew out of its depths, turning out to be an ether-gravitational bolide. The “ether-gravitational bolide” is a super-dense stone block, like an underground meteorite, supersaturated with compressed ether. |
| 1996 | V. V. Svetsov Meteorite | A rocky asteroid with a diameter of 60 meters and a weight of 15 megatons entered the atmosphere at an angle of 45 degrees and penetrated deep into the atmosphere. Not having slowed down enough, and in dense layers it experienced enormous aerodynamic loads, which completely destroyed it, turning it into a swarm of small (no more than 1 cm in diameter) fragments immersed in a high-intensity radiation field. |
| 1996 | M. Dimde Energy | An experiment on transmitting the energy of electric waves over a distance. A few months before the explosion, Tesla claimed that he could light the way to the north pole for the expedition of the famous traveler R. Pirri. When trying to do this, he made a mistake in his calculations. |
| 1996 | Alien | About the entry of extraterrestrial matter into the Earth’s atmosphere, possibly a planet with a high content of iridium. |
| 1997 | B. N. IgnatovNatural | The Tunguska explosion was caused by "the collision and detonation of 3 ball lightning with a diameter of more than one meter each." |
| 1998 | B. U. Rodionov | An explosion of hypothetical linear matter contained within each thread of a magnetic flux quantum. |
| 1998 | Yu. A. Nikolaev Meteorite | Release 200 kt. natural methane, and then an explosion of a methane-air cloud initiated by a stone or iron meteorite of three meters in diameter. |
| 2000 | V. I. Zyukov Comet | The Tunguska meteorite could be a relict ice comet, which was a block of ice of a high modification. The proposed modification of ice makes it possible to solve the issue of the strength of the TCT when it enters the Earth’s atmosphere, and is in good agreement with many known observational facts. |
| July 2003 | Yu. D. Labvin Martian-comet-alien | Labvin Yu. D. believes that in order to prevent a large-scale catastrophe, due to the collision of an invading comet (of Martian origin) with the Earth, it was destroyed by an alien ship that launched from Earth and died when the comet was destroyed. In 2004, on the shores of the Podkamennaya Tunguska, a scientist discovered materials belonging to a technical device of extraterrestrial origin. According to preliminary analyzes, the metal is an alloy of iron and silicon (iron silicide) with the addition of other elements, unknown in this composition on Earth and having a very high temperature melting. |
But these are all just hypotheses, and the mystery of the Tunguska meteorite remains a mystery.
Thousands of researchers are trying to understand what happened on June 30, 1908 in the Siberian taiga. To the area Tunguska disaster In addition to Russian expeditions, international expeditions are regularly sent.
Consequences
Tunguska meteorite for many years turned the rich taiga into a cemetery of dead forest. Studying consequences of the disaster showed that the explosion energy was 10 - 40 megatons of TNT equivalent, which is comparable to the energy of two thousand simultaneously detonated nuclear bombs, similar to the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Later, increased tree growth was discovered at the center of the explosion, indicating a radiation release. And this is not all the consequences of the Tunguska meteorite...
On June 30, 1908, at about 7 o'clock in the morning, a large fireball flew through the Earth's atmosphere from southeast to northwest and exploded in the Siberian taiga, in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River.
The place where the Tunguska meteorite fell on the map of Russia
A dazzling bright ball was visible in Central Siberia within a radius of 600 kilometers, and heard within a radius of 1000 kilometers. The power of the explosion was later estimated at 10-50 megatons, which corresponds to the energy of two thousand atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, or the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb. The air wave was so strong that it knocked down a forest within a radius of 40 kilometers. The total area of the fallen forest was about 2,200 square kilometers. And due to the flow of hot gases as a result of the explosion, a fire broke out, which completed the devastation of the surrounding area and turned it into a taiga cemetery for many years.
Lesoval in the area of the Tunguska meteorite fall
The air wave generated by the unprecedented explosion circled the globe twice. It was recorded in seismographic laboratories in Copenhagen, Zagreb, Washington, Potsdam, London, Jakarta and other cities.
A few minutes after the explosion, a magnetic storm began. It lasted about four hours.
Eyewitness accounts
"... suddenly in the north the sky split in two, and a fire appeared in it, wide and high above the forest, which engulfed the entire northern part sky. At that moment I felt so hot, as if my shirt was on fire. I wanted to tear and throw off my shirt, but the sky slammed shut and there was a strong blow. I was thrown three fathoms off the porch. After the blow there was such a knock, as if stones were falling from the sky or guns were firing, the ground shook, and when I was lying on the ground, I pressed my head, fearing that the stones would break my head. At that moment, when the sky opened, a hot wind rushed from the north, like from a cannon, which left traces in the form of paths on the ground. Then it turned out that many of the windows were broken, and the iron bar for the door lock was broken.”
Semyon Semenov, resident of the Vanavara trading post, 70 km from the epicenter of the explosion ("Knowledge is Power", 2003, No. 60)
"On the morning of June 17, at the beginning of the 9th hour, we observed some unusual phenomenon nature. In the village of N.-Karelinsky (200 versts from Kirensk to the north), peasants saw in the northwest, quite high above the horizon, some extremely strongly (it was impossible to look at) body glowing with a white, bluish light, moving for 10 minutes from top to bottom . The body was presented in the form of a “pipe,” that is, cylindrical. The sky was cloudless, only not high above the horizon; in the same direction in which the luminous body was observed, a small dark cloud was noticeable. It was hot and dry. Approaching the ground (forest), the shiny body seemed to blur, and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke formed and an extremely strong knock (not thunder) was heard, as if from large falling stones or cannon fire. All the buildings shook. At the same time, a flame of an indeterminate shape began to burst out of the cloud. All residents of the village panic fear they ran to the streets, the women were crying, everyone thought that the end of the world was coming."
S. Kulesh, newspaper "Siberia", July 29 (15), 1908
Over a vast area from the Yenisei to the Atlantic coast of Europe, unusual light phenomena of an unprecedented scale unfolded, which went down in history under the name “bright nights of the summer of 1908.” The clouds, which formed at an altitude of about 80 km, intensely reflected the sun's rays, thereby creating the effect of bright nights even where they had never been observed before. Throughout this vast territory, on the evening of June 30, night practically did not fall: the entire sky was glowing, so that it was possible to read a newspaper at midnight without artificial lighting. This phenomenon continued until July 4th. Interestingly, similar atmospheric anomalies began in 1908, long before the Tunguska explosion: unusual glows, flashes of light and colored lightning were observed above North America and the Atlantic, over Europe and Russia 3 months before the Tunguska explosion.
Later, at the epicenter of the explosion, increased growth of trees began, which indicates genetic mutations. Such anomalies are never observed at meteorite impact sites, but are very similar to those caused by hard ionizing radiation or strong electromagnetic fields.
A section of larch from the area where the Tunguska body fell, cut down in 1958.
The 1908 annual layer appears dark. Accelerated growth is clearly visible
larch after 1908, when the tree suffered radiant burn.
Scientific research into this phenomenon began only in the 20s of the last century. The place where the celestial body fell was explored by 4 expeditions organized by the USSR Academy of Sciences and headed by Leonid Alekseevich Kulik (1927) and Kirill Pavlovich Florensky (after the Great Patriotic War). 
The only thing that was found were small silicate and magnetite balls, which, according to scientists, are the product of the destruction of the Tunguska alien. The researchers did not find a characteristic meteor crater, although later, over many years of searching for fragments of the Tunguska meteorite, members of various expeditions discovered a total of 12 wide conical holes in the disaster area. No one knows to what depth they go, since no one has even tried to study them. It was discovered that around the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, the forest was fanned out from the center, and in the center some of the trees remained standing, but without branches and without bark. “It was like a forest of telephone poles.”
Subsequent expeditions noticed that the area of fallen forest was shaped like a butterfly. Computer modeling of the shape of this area, taking into account all the circumstances of the fall, showed that the explosion did not occur when the body collided with the earth’s surface, but even before that, in the air, at an altitude of 5–10 km, and the weight of the space alien was estimated at 5 million tons.
Scheme of forest felling around the epicenter of the Tunguska explosion
along the “butterfly” with the axis of symmetry AB taken
for the main direction of the trajectory of the Tunguska meteorite.
More than 100 years have passed since then, but the mystery of the Tunguska phenomenon still remains unsolved.
There are many hypotheses about the nature of the Tunguska meteorite - about 100! None of them provides an explanation for all the phenomena that were observed during the Tunguska phenomenon. Some believe that it was a giant meteorite, others are inclined to believe that it was an asteroid; there are hypotheses about the volcanic origin of the Tunguska phenomenon (the epicenter of the Tunguska explosion amazingly exactly coincides with the center of the ancient volcano). The hypothesis that the Tunguska meteorite is an extraterrestrial interplanetary ship that crashed in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere is also very popular. This hypothesis was put forward in 1945 by science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev. However the largest number Researchers consider the most plausible hypothesis that the Tunguska alien was the nucleus or fragment of the nucleus of a comet (the main suspect is Comet Encke), which burst into the Earth’s atmosphere, heated up from friction with the air and exploded before reaching the earth’s surface - that’s why there is no crater. The trees were toppled by the shock wave from the air explosion, and the ice fragments that fell to the ground simply melted.Hypotheses about the nature of the Tunguska alien continue to be put forward to this day. So, in 2009, NASA experts suggested that it was indeed a giant meteorite, but not stone, but ice. This hypothesis explains the absence of traces of the meteorite on Earth and the appearance of noctilucent clouds, which were observed a day after the Tunguska meteorite fell to Earth. According to this hypothesis, they appeared as a result of the passage of a meteorite through the dense layers of the atmosphere: this began the release of water molecules and microparticles of ice, which led to the formation of noctilucent clouds in the upper layers of the atmosphere.
It should be noted that the Americans were not the first to hypothesize about the icy nature of the Tunguska meteorite: Soviet physicists made such an assumption a quarter of a century ago. However, it became possible to test the plausibility of this hypothesis only with the advent of specialized equipment, such as the AIM satellite - it conducted research on noctilucent clouds in 2007.
This is how the Podkamennaya Tunguska area looks from the air today
The Tunguska disaster is one of the most well-studied, but at the same time the most mysterious phenomena of the twentieth century. Dozens of expeditions, hundreds of scientific articles, thousands of researchers were only able to increase knowledge about it, but were never able to clearly answer a simple question: what was it?
The 360 TV channel was looking into why not a single fragment of the Tunguska meteorite, which provoked a powerful explosion, has yet been found.
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Exactly 109 years ago, a powerful explosion occurred in Siberia caused by the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Despite the fact that more than a century has passed since that moment, there are still many blank spots in this story. “360” tells what is known about the fallen cosmic body.
In the early morning of June 30, 1908, when the inhabitants of the northern part of Eurasia were still dreaming, a terrible natural disaster almost broke out over them. Many generations of people did not remember anything like this. Something similar could be seen almost 40 years later at the end of the terrible war in history.
That morning, a monstrous explosion thundered over the remote Siberian taiga in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. Scientists subsequently estimated its power at 40-50 megatons. Only Khrushchev’s famous “Tsar Bomba” or “Kuzka’s Mother” could release such energy. The bombs that the Americans dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much weaker. People who lived in large cities in northern Europe at that time were lucky that this event did not happen above them. The consequences of the explosion in this case would be much worse.
Explosion over the taiga
The site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, which occurred on June 30, 1908 in the basin of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River (now the Evenki National District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory of the RSFSR). Photo: RIA Novosti.
The fall of an unknown space alien to Earth did not go unnoticed. A few eyewitnesses, taiga hunters and cattle breeders, as well as residents of small settlements scattered in Siberia, saw the flight of a huge fireball over the taiga. Later, an explosion was heard, the echo of which was caught far from the scene of events. At a distance of hundreds of kilometers from it, windows were broken in houses, and the blast wave was recorded by observatories in various countries in both hemispheres. For several more days, flickering clouds and an unusual glow in the sky were observed in the sky from the Atlantic to Siberia. After the incident, people began to remember that two or three days before they had noticed strange atmospheric phenomena- glows, halo, bright twilight. But whether it was fantasy or truth cannot be established for sure.
First expedition
Soviet scientist A. Zolotov (left) takes soil samples at the site of the Tunguska meteorite fall. Photo: RIA Novosti.
Humanity learned about what happened at the site of the disaster much later - only 19 years later the first expedition was sent to the area where the mysterious celestial body fell. The initiator of the study of the site of the fall of the meteorite, which was not yet called Tunguska, was the scientist Leonid Alekseevich Kulik. He was an expert in mineralogy and celestial bodies and led a newly created expedition to search for them. He came across a description of the mysterious phenomenon in a pre-revolutionary issue of the newspaper “Sibirskaya Zhizn”. The text clearly indicated the location of the event, and even cited eyewitness accounts. People even mentioned the “top of the meteorite sticking out of the ground.”
The hut of the first expedition of researchers led by Leonid Kulik in the area of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Photo: Vitaly Bezrukikh / RIA Novosti.
In the early 1920s, Kulik's expedition managed to collect only scattered memories of those who remembered a flaming ball in the night sky. This made it possible to approximately establish the area where the space guest fell, where the researchers went in 1927.
Consequences of the explosion
The site of the Tunguska meteorite explosion. Photo: RIA Novosti.
The first expedition found that the consequences of the cataclysm were enormous. Even according to preliminary estimates, forests over an area of more than two thousand square kilometers were felled in the area of the fall. The trees lay with their roots towards the center of the giant circle, pointing the way to the epicenter. When we managed to get to him, the first riddles appeared. In the supposed fall area, the forest remained standing. The trees stood dead and almost completely devoid of bark. There were no traces of a crater anywhere.
Attempts to solve the mystery. Funny hypotheses
A place in the taiga near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, where 80 years ago (June 30, 1908) a fiery body called the Tunguska meteorite fell. Here, on the taiga lake, is the laboratory of the expedition to study this disaster. Photo: RIA Novosti.
Kulik devoted his entire life to the search for the Tunguska meteorite. From 1927 to 1938, several expeditions were carried out to the epicenter area. But the celestial body was never found, not a single fragment of it was found. There weren't even any dents from the impact. Several large depressions gave hope, but upon detailed examination it turned out that these were thermokarst pits. Even aerial photography did not help in the search.
The next expedition was planned for 1941, but it was not destined to take place - the war began, which pushed all other issues in the life of the country into the background. At the very beginning, Leonid Alekseevich Kulik went to the front as a volunteer as part of the division people's militia. The scientist died of typhus in the occupied territory in the city of Spas-Demensk.
Forest fall in the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell. Photo: RIA Novosti.
They returned to studying the problem and searching for the crater or the meteorite itself only in 1958. A scientific expedition organized by the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences went to the taiga to Podkamennaya Tunguska. She also did not find a single fragment of a celestial body. For many years, the Tunguska meteorite has attracted many different scientists, researchers and even writers. Thus, science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev suggested that an interplanetary spaceship exploded over the Siberian taiga that night, unable to complete its mission. soft landing. Other hypotheses have been put forward, some serious and some not so serious. The funniest of them was the assumption that existed among the researchers of the crash site, tormented by midges and mosquitoes: they believed that a huge ball of winged bloodsuckers exploded over the forest, which was hit by a lightning bolt.
So what was it
Diamond-graphite intergrowths from the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite on the Podkamennaya Tunguska River near the village of Vanavara in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Photo: RIA Novosti.
To date, the main version is the cometary origin of the Tunguska meteorite. This also explains the lack of finds of fragments of a celestial body, because comets consist of gas and dust. Research, searches and construction of new hypotheses continue. A mysterious meteorite, mentioned many times in books, comics, films, TV shows and even in music, may still be waiting for someone to find its fragments. The mystery of the origin and “death” of the celestial body also awaits a final solution. Humanity thanks chance for the fact that the Tunguska meteorite (or comet?) fell in the remote taiga. If this had happened in the center of Europe, most likely the whole modern history Earth. And in honor of Leonid Alekseevich Kulik - a romantic and discoverer - a small planet and a crater on the Moon were named.
Alexander Zhirnov
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