There are plenty of versions about the nature of the Tunguska meteorite - from a banal fragment of an asteroid to an alien spaceship or the great Tesla's experiment that got out of control. Numerous expeditions and thorough surveys of the epicenter of the explosion still do not allow scientists to unambiguously answer the question of what happened in the summer of 1908.
Two suns over the taiga
Endless Eastern Siberia, Yenisei province. At 7:14 am, the serenity of the morning was broken by an unusual natural phenomenon. In the direction from south to north over the boundless taiga, a dazzling luminous body flashed, surpassing the sun in brightness. Its flight was accompanied by thunderous sounds. Leaving a smoky trail in the sky, the body deafeningly exploded, presumably at an altitude of 5 to 10 km. The epicenter of the above-ground explosion fell on the area between the Khushma and Kimcha rivers, which flow into the Podkamennaya Tunguska (the right tributary of the Yenisei), not far from the Evenki settlement of Vanavara. The sound wave propagated over 800 km, and the shockeven at a distance of two hundred kilometers it was so strong that the windows of the buildings burst.
Based on the stories of a few eyewitnesses, the phenomenon was dubbed the Tunguska meteorite, since the phenomenon they describe was extremely reminiscent of the flight of a large fireball.
Summer of bright nights
The seismic vibrations caused by the explosion were recorded by the instruments of many observatories around the globe. Over the vast territory from the Yenisei to the Atlantic coast of Europe, subsequent nights were accompanied by amazing lighting effects. In the upper layers of the earth's mesosphere (from 50 to 100 km), cloud formations have formed that intensely reflect the sun's rays. Thanks to this, on the day of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, night did not come at all - after sunset it was possible to read without additional lighting. The intensity of the phenomenon gradually began to decline, but individual bursts of illumination could be observed for another month.
First expeditions
The military-political and economic events that overwhelmed the Russian Empire in the coming years (the second Russo-Japanese war, the intensification of the interclass struggle that led to the October Revolution) made us forget about the exceptional phenomenon for a while. But immediately after the end of the Civil War, on the initiative of Academician V. I. Vernadsky and the founder of Russian geochemistry A. E. Fersman, preparations began for an expedition to the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite.
In 1921, Soviet geophysicist L. A. Kulik and researcher, writer andthe poet P. L. Dravert visited Eastern Siberia. Eyewitnesses of the event of thirteen years ago were interviewed, numerous material was collected about the circumstances and the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell. From 1927 to 1939 under the leadership of Leonid Alekseevich, several more expeditions were carried out to the Vanavara region.
Finding a funnel
The main result of the first trip to the place where the Tunguska meteorite fell was the following discoveries:
- Detection of a radial fall in the taiga over an area of more than 2000 km2.
- In the epicenter, the trees remained standing, but they resembled telegraph poles with a complete absence of bark and branches, which once again confirmed the validity of the statement about the above-ground nature of the explosion. A swampy lake was also discovered here, which, according to Kulik, hid a funnel from the fall of a cosmic body.
During the second expedition (summer and autumn 1928) a detailed topographic map of the area was compiled, film and photography of the fallen taiga. The researchers partially managed to pump water out of the funnel, but the magnetometric samples taken showed the complete absence of meteorite material.
Subsequent trips to the disaster area also did not bring results in terms of searching for fragments of the "space guest", with the exception of the smallest particles of silicates and magnetites.
"Stone" Yankovsky
One episode worth mentioning separately. During the third trip, expedition worker Konstantin Yankovsky during an independent hunt innear the Chugrim River (a tributary of the Khushma), a brownish stone block of a cellular structure, very similar to a meteorite, was found and photographed. The length of the find was more than two meters, width and height - about a meter. Project manager Leonid Kulik did not attach due importance to the message of the young employee, since, in his opinion, the Tunguska meteorite could only have an iron nature.
In the future, none of the enthusiasts will be able to find the mysterious stone, although such attempts have been repeatedly made.
Few facts - many hypotheses
So, no material particles confirming the fact of the fall of a cosmic body in 1908 in Siberia were found. And as you know, the less facts, the more fantasies and assumptions. A century later, none of the hypotheses has received unanimous acceptance in scientific circles. There are still many supporters of the meteorite theory. Its adherents are firmly convinced that in the end the notorious funnel with the remains of the Tunguska meteorite will still be discovered. The place most optimal for searches is called the Southern swamp of the interfluve.
Soviet planetologist and geochemist, leader of one of the expeditions to the Vanavara region (1958) KP Florensky suggested that the meteorite could have a loose, cellular structure. Then, when heated in the earth's atmosphere, the meteorite substance ignited, interacting with atmospheric oxygen, as a result of which an explosion occurred.
Some researchers explain the nature of the explosion by an electric discharge between a positively charged cosmic body (charge as a result offriction against the dense layers of the earth's atmosphere could reach a colossal value of 105 pendant) and the surface of the planet.
Academician Vernadsky explains the lack of a crater by the fact that the Tunguska meteorite could be a cloud of cosmic dust that invaded our atmosphere at a gigantic speed.
Comet nucleus?
There are a lot of supporters of the hypothesis that in 1908 our planet collided with a small comet. Such an assumption was first made by the Soviet astronomer V. Fasenkov and the British J. Whipple. This theory is supported by the fact that in the area where the cosmic body fell, the soil is rich in inclusions of silicate and magnetite particles.
According to the physicist G. Bybin, an active promoter of the "comet" hypothesis, the core of the "tailed wanderer" consisted mainly of substances of low strength and high volatility (frozen gases and water) with a slight admixture of solid dust material. Appropriate calculations and application of computer simulation methods show that in this case it is possible to quite satisfactorily interpret all the phenomena observed at the time of the fall of the body and in the following days.
"Explosion" by writer Kazantsev
The Soviet science fiction writer A. P. Kazantsev offered his vision of what happened in 1946. In the story "Explosion", published in the almanac "Around the World", the writer through the mouth of his character - a physicist -presented to the public two new versions of the solution to the mystery of the Tunguska meteorite:
- The space body that invaded the earth's atmosphere in 1908 was a "uranium" meteorite, resulting in an atomic explosion over the taiga.
- Another reason for such an explosion could be the catastrophe of an alien spacecraft.
Alexander Kazantsev drew his conclusions on the basis of the similarity of light, sound and other phenomena resulting from the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States and the mysterious event of 1908. It should be noted that the writer's theories, although they were sharply criticized by official science, found their admirers and adherents.
Nikola Tesla and the Tunguska meteorite
Some researchers give the Siberian phenomenon a completely mundane explanation. According to some, the explosion in the Vanavara region is the result of an experiment by an American scientist of Serbian origin, Nikola Tesla, on wireless transmission of energy over long distances. As far back as the end of the nineteenth century, the "lightning lord" with the help of his miracle tower in Colorado Springs (USA) lit 200 electric bulbs, up to 25 miles away from the source, without the use of conductors. In the future, while working on the Wardenclyffe project, the scientist was going to broadcast electricity over the air to anywhere in the world. Experts consider it quite likely that the original bundle of energy was generated by the great Tesla. overcomingEarth's atmosphere and having accumulated a colossal charge, the beam reflected from the ozone layer and, according to the calculated trajectory, splashed out all its power over the deserted northern regions of Russia. It is noteworthy that in the library records of the US Congress, the scientist's requests for maps of the least populated Siberian lands have been preserved.
Fell from below?
The rest of the hypotheses of the "earthly" origin of the phenomenon do not agree with the circumstances recorded in 1908. Thus, the geologist V. Epifanov and the astrophysicist V. Kund suggested that the aboveground explosion could have occurred as a result of the release of tens of millions of cubic meters of natural gas from the bowels of the planet. A similar pattern of forest fall, but on a much smaller scale, was observed near the village of Cando (Galicia, Spain) in 1994. It has been proven that the explosion on the Iberian Peninsula was caused by the release of underground gas.
A number of researchers (B. N. Ignatov, N. S. Kudryavtseva, A. Yu. Olkhovatov) explain the Tunguska phenomenon by the collision and detonation of ball lightning, an unusual earthquake, and the sudden activity of the Vanavara volcanic pipe.
Following fundamental science
After the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, year after year, with the development of science, new theories appeared. So, following the discovery of the antiparticle of the electron - the positron - in 1932, a hypothesis arose about the "anti-nature" of the Tunguska "guest". True, in this case it is difficult to explain the very fact that antimatter did not annihilate much earlier, colliding in outer space withparticles of matter.
With the development of quantum generators (lasers), convinced supporters appeared that in 1908 a cosmic laser beam of unknown generation penetrated the earth's atmosphere, but this theory did not receive much distribution.
Finally, in recent years, American physicists A. Jackson and M. Ryan put forward a hypothesis that the Tunguska meteorite was a small "black hole". This assumption was met with skepticism by the scientific community, since the theoretically calculated consequences of such a collision do not at all correspond to the observed picture.
Reserved area
More than a hundred years have passed since the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Photo and video material collected by the participants of the first expeditions of Kulik, detailed maps of the area compiled by them, are still of great scientific value. Realizing the uniqueness of the phenomenon, in October 1995, by a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, a state reserve was established in the area of \u200b\u200bPodkamennaya Tunguska on an area of \u200b\u200babout 300 thousand hectares. Numerous Russian and foreign researchers continue their work here.
In 2016, on the day of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite - June 30, at the initiative of the UN General Assembly, the International Asteroid Day was proclaimed. Realizing the significance and potential threat of such phenomena, on this day representatives of the world scientific community hold events aimed at drawing attention to the problems of search and timely detectiondangerous space objects.
By the way, filmmakers are still actively exploiting the theme of the Tunguska meteorite. Documentary films tell about new expeditions and hypotheses, and various fantastic artifacts found in the epicenter of the explosion play an important role in game projects.
False sensations?
Approximately every five years, enthusiastic reports appear in various media sources that the secret of the Tunguska explosion has been solved. Of the most high-profile in recent decades, it is worth noting the statement of the head of the TKF (Tunguska Space Phenomenon) Foundation, Y. Lavbin, about the discovery of quartz cobblestones with signs of an unknown alphabet in the disaster area - supposedly fragments of an information container from an extraterrestrial spacecraft that crashed in 1908.
The head of the expedition Vladimir Alekseev (2010, Troitsk Institute for Innovation and Thermonuclear Research) also reported about the amazing find. When scanning the bottom of the Suslov funnel with a georadar, a giant array of cosmic ice was discovered. According to the scientist, this is a fragment from the nucleus of a comet that blew up Siberian silence a century ago.
Official science refrains from commenting. Maybe humanity has encountered a phenomenon, the essence and nature of which, at the current level of development, is not able to comprehend? One of the researchers of the Tunguska phenomenon very aptly remarked on this: perhaps we are like savages who watched an airliner crash in the jungle.
