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  • The size of the Tunguska meteorite before the fall. Where the Tunguska meteorite fell: features, history and interesting facts

The size of the Tunguska meteorite before the fall. Where the Tunguska meteorite fell: features, history and interesting facts

June 30, 1908 an explosion thundered in the air over a dense forest in Siberia, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. They say the fireball was 50-100 meters wide. He destroyed 2,000 square kilometers of taiga, knocking under 80 million trees. More than a hundred years have passed since then - it was the most powerful explosion in the documented history of mankind - but scientists are still trying to figure out what exactly happened.

Then the earth shook. In the nearest town, 60 kilometers away, glass flew out of the windows. Residents even felt the heat of the explosion.

Fortunately, the area in which this massive explosion occurred was sparsely populated. No one died, judging by the reports, only one local reindeer herder died after he was thrown into a tree by an explosion. Hundreds of deer also turned into charred carcasses.

One of the eyewitnesses said that “the sky split in two and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky was engulfed in fire. And then there was an explosion in the sky and a powerful crack. A noise followed, as if stones were falling from the sky or guns were firing. ”

The Tunguska meteorite - this event was dubbed - became the most powerful in history: it produced 185 more energy than the atomic bomb in Hiroshima (and, according to some estimates, even more). Seismic waves recorded even in the UK.

However, after a hundred years, scientists are still wondering what exactly happened on that fateful day. Many are convinced that it was an asteroid or comet. But practically no traces of a large extraterrestrial object were found - only traces of an explosion - which paved the way for a variety of theories (including a conspiracy).

Tunguska is far away in Siberia, and the climate there is not the most lamp-like. Long, evil winters and very short summers, when the soil turns into a muddy and unpleasant swamp. It is very difficult to move around such an area.

When the explosion rang out, no one dared to investigate the scene. Natalia Artemyeva of the Institute for Planetary Sciences in Tucson, Arizona, said the Russian authorities had more pressing problems then to idly satisfy their scientific curiosity.

Political passions grew in the country - World War I and the revolution happened very soon. “Even in the local newspapers there were not many publications, not to mention St. Petersburg and Moscow,” she says.

Decades later, in 1927, a team led by Leonid Kulik finally visited the site of the explosion. He stumbled upon a description of the event six years earlier and convinced authorities that the trip would be worth the candle. Once in place, Kulik even twenty years after the explosion discovered obvious signs of disaster.

He found a huge area of \u200b\u200bfallen trees, which stretched for 50 kilometers in a strange butterfly shape. The scientist suggested that a meteor from space exploded in the atmosphere. But he was embarrassed that the meteor did not leave any crater - and indeed, the meteor itself did not remain. To explain this, Kulik suggested that the shaky soil was too soft to retain traces of impact, and therefore the debris left after the collision was also buried.

Kulik did not lose hope of finding the remains of a meteorite, which he wrote about in 1938. “We could find crushed masses of this nickel iron at a depth of 25 meters, individual pieces of which could weigh one hundred or two hundred metric tons.”

Later, Russian researchers said that it was a comet, not a meteor. Comets are large pieces of ice, not stone, like meteorites, so this could explain the absence of fragments of a foreign stone. The ice began to evaporate already at the entrance to the Earth’s atmosphere and continued to evaporate until the moment of the collision.

But the debate did not stop there. Since the exact nature of the explosion was unclear, outlandish theories continued to appear one after another. Some have suggested that the Tunguska meteorite was the result of a collision of matter and antimatter. When this happens, the particles annihilate and emit a lot of energy.

Another suggestion was that the explosion was nuclear. An even more ridiculous proposal was a vinyl alien ship that crashed in search of fresh water on Lake Baikal.

As expected, not one of these theories has fired. And in 1958, an expedition to the site of the explosion discovered tiny residues of silicate and magnetite in the soil.

Further analysis showed that they contained a lot of nickel, which is often found in meteorite rock. Everything indicated that it was a meteorite - and K. Florensky, the author of the report on the theme of this event from 1963, really wanted to cut off other, more fantastic theories:

“Although I understand the benefits of sensationally drawing public attention to this issue, it should be emphasized that this unhealthy interest that arose as a result of misrepresentation and misinformation can never be used as the basis for promoting scientific knowledge.”

But this did not stop others from coming up with even more dubious ideas. In 1973, an article was published in the authoritative journal Nature, which suggested that the collision of a black hole with the Earth led to this explosion. The theory was quickly challenged.

Artemyeva says that ideas like this are a common by-product of human psychology. “People who love secrets and“ theories ”usually don’t listen to scientists,” she says. The big bang, coupled with a shortage of space remains, is fertile ground for this kind of speculation. She also says that scientists should take on some responsibility because they dragged on for too long to analyze the location of the explosion. They were more concerned with larger asteroids, which could cause global extinctions, like the asteroid that left the Chiksulub crater. Thanks to him, 66 million years ago, dinosaurs became extinct.

In 2013, a group of scientists put an end to much of the speculation of previous decades. Under the leadership of Viktor Krasnitsy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, scientists analyzed microscopic samples of stones collected at the site of the explosion in 1978. The stones were of meteorite origin. Most importantly, the analyzed fragments were extracted from a layer of peat, which was collected back in 1908.

Traces of a carbon mineral - lonsdaleite - whose crystal structure resembles diamond, were found in these samples. Specifically, this mineral is formed when a graphite-containing structure like a meteorite crashes into the Earth.

“Our study of samples from Tunguska, as well as studies by many other authors, showed the meteorite origin of the Tunguska event,” says Krasnitsya. “We believe that nothing paranormal has happened in Tunguska.”

The main problem, he said, is that the researchers spent too much time searching for large pieces of the breed. “We had to look for very small particles,” like the ones that his group was studying.

But this conclusion was not final. Meteor showers happen often. Many small meteorites could get to Earth undetected. Samples of meteorite origin could well go this way. Some scientists also questioned the fact that peat was collected in 1908.

Even Artemyeva says that she needs to reconsider her models in order to understand the complete absence of meteorites in Tunguska. And yet, in accordance with the early observations of Leonid Kulik, today a broad consensus implies that the event in Podkamennaya Tunguska was caused by a large cosmic body, an asteroid or comet, which collided with the Earth’s atmosphere.

Most asteroids have fairly stable orbits; many of them are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Nevertheless, “various gravitational interactions can lead to a sharp change in their orbits,” says Gareth Collins of Imperial College, London, UK.

From time to time, these solids can intersect with the orbit of the Earth, and therefore collide with our planet. At the moment when such a body enters the atmosphere and begins to crumble, it becomes a meteor.

The event in Podkamennaya Tunguska is interesting to scientists in that it was an extremely rare case of a "megaton" event - the energy emitted during the explosion was 10-15 megatons of TNT equivalent, and this is by the most conservative estimate.

This also explains why the event was difficult to fully appreciate. This is the only event of this magnitude that has happened in recent history. “Therefore, our understanding is limited,” Collins says.

Artemyeva says that there are clear steps that she described in a review that will be published in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the second half of 2016.

First, the cosmic body entered our atmosphere at a speed of 15-30 km / s.

Fortunately, our atmosphere protects us perfectly. “She will tear apart a stone smaller than a football field across,” explains NASA researcher Bill Cook, a meteoroid director at NASA. “Most people think that these stones tumble into us from outer space and leave craters, and above them another column of smoke will hang. But it's quite the opposite. ”

The atmosphere, as a rule, breaks up stones a few kilometers above the surface of the Earth, giving out rain of small stones that will cool by the moment they fall to the ground. In the case of Tunguska, a flying meteor had to be extremely fragile, or the explosion was so powerful that it destroyed all its remnants 8-10 kilometers above the Earth.

This process explains the second stage of the event. The atmosphere vaporized the object into tiny pieces, and at the same time, intense kinetic energy turned them into heat.

“This process is similar to a chemical explosion. In modern explosions, chemical or nuclear energy is converted into heat, ”says Artemyev.

In other words, any remnants of anything that entered the Earth’s atmosphere turned into cosmic dust.

If everything was so, it becomes clear why there are no giant debris of cosmic matter at the site of the fall. “Throughout this large area, it’s difficult to find even a millimeter grain. You need to look in peat, ”says Krasnitsya.

When the object entered the atmosphere and fell apart, intense heat generated a shock wave that spread hundreds of kilometers away. When this air blast hit the ground, it tumbled down all the trees in the neighborhood.

Artemyev suggests that this was followed by a giant loop and a cloud of "thousands of kilometers in diameter."

Nevertheless, the history of the Tunguska meteorite does not end there. Even now, some scholars say that we are missing the obvious by trying to explain this event.

In 2007, a group of Italian scientists suggested that a lake 8 kilometers north-northwest of the epicenter of the explosion could be an impact crater. Lake Cheko, they say, was not marked on any map before this event.

Luca Gaserini from the University of Bologna in Italy traveled to the lake in the late 1990s and says that explaining the origin of the lake in any way is still very difficult. “Now we are sure that it was formed after the impact, but not from the main body of the Tunguska asteroid, but from its fragment, which survived the explosion.”

Gasperini firmly believes that most of the asteroid lies 10 meters below the bottom of the lake, buried under bottom sediments. “The Russians could easily go there and drill the bottom,” he says. Despite serious criticism of this theory, he hopes that someone will extract traces of meteorite origin from the lake.

Cheka Lake as an impact crater is not the most popular idea. This is just another quasi-theory, says Artemyev. “Any mysterious object at the bottom of the lake could be removed with minimal effort — the lake is shallow,” she says. Collins also disagrees with Gasperini.

Apart from the details, we still feel the consequences of the Tunguska event. Scientists continue to publish work.

Astronomers can peer into the sky with powerful telescopes and look for signs of other similar stones that can also cause massive damage.

In 2013, the relatively small meteor (19 meters in diameter) that exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia left significant damage. This surprises scientists like Collins. According to his models, such a meteor should not do any harm at all.

“The complexity of this process is that the asteroid is destroyed in the atmosphere, slows down, evaporates and transfers energy to the air, all this is difficult to model. We would like to find out more about this process in order to better predict the consequences of such events in the future. ”

Meteors the size of Chelyabinsk fall about every hundred years, and the size of the Tunguska - once every thousand years. So thought before. Now these figures need to be reviewed. Perhaps the Chelyabinsk meteors fall ten times more often, Collins says, while the Tunguska meteors fly once every 100-200 years.

Unfortunately, we are defenseless in the face of such events, says Krasnitsya. If a similar Tunguska event occurs over a populated city, thousands, if not millions of people, will die, depending on the epicenter.

But all is not so bad. The likelihood that this will happen is extremely small, according to Collins, given the huge surface area of \u200b\u200bthe Earth that is covered by water. Most likely, a meteorite will fall far from the place of residence of people.

Perhaps we will never know what the Tunguska Meteorite was, a meteor or a comet, but in a sense this is not important. The important thing is that we talk about this a hundred years later, and we really care about that. Both that, and another can lead to disaster.

On June 30, 1908, at about 7 o’clock in the morning, a large fireball flew from the southeast to northwest in the Earth’s atmosphere, which exploded in the Siberian taiga, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River.


The place of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite on the map of Russia

A dazzling bright ball was visible in Central Siberia in a radius of 600 kilometers, and heard in 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 a forest fell in a radius of 40 kilometers. The total area of \u200b\u200bthe felled forest was about 2200 square kilometers. And because of the flow of hot gases as a result of the explosion, a fire broke out, which completed the devastation of the surroundings and turned them into a taiga cemetery for many years.


Forested in the area of \u200b\u200bthe fall of the Tunguska meteorite

An air wave generated by an unprecedented explosion twice circled the globe. 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 bifurcated, and a fire appeared wide and high above the forest, which swept the entire northern part of the sky. At that moment I felt so hot as if a shirt had caught fire on me. I wanted to rip and throw off my shirt, but the sky slammed shut and a strong blow rang out. I was thrown from the porch by three fathoms. After the blow, there was such a knock, as if stones had fallen from the sky or shot from cannons, the earth was trembling, and when I lay on the ground I pressed my head, fearing that the stones they didn’t break their heads. "The hot wind swept through like a cannon, which left traces in the form of paths on the ground. Then it turned out that many of the glasses in the windows were smashed out, and an iron tab for breaking the door broke in the barn."
Semyon Semyonov, resident of the Vanavar trading post, 70 km from the epicenter of the explosion (Knowledge is Power, 2003, No. 60)

“On June 17 in the morning, at the beginning of the 9th hour, we observed some unusual natural phenomenon. In the village of N.-Karelinsky (about 200 versts from Kirensk to the north), peasants saw in the north-west, quite high above the horizon, an extremely strong (it was impossible to watch) 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, a cylindrical one. The sky was cloudless, only not high above the horizon, on the same side , in which a luminous body was observed, was noticeably small dark It was hot and dry, approaching the ground (forest), the brilliant body seemed to blur, but in its place a huge club of black smoke formed and an extremely strong knock (not thunder) was heard, as if from large falling stones or cannon fire. All buildings trembled. At the same time, an indefinite form of flame began to erupt from the cloud. All the villagers ran into the streets in panic fear, the women cried, everyone thought that the end of the world was coming. "
  S. Kulesh, Sibir newspaper, July 29 (15), 1908

On a vast space from the Yenisei to the Atlantic coast of Europe, unusual in magnitude unusual light phenomena 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 seen before. Throughout this vast territory on the evening of June 30, almost no night fell: the entire sky was lit up, so that it was possible to read the newspaper at midnight without artificial lighting. This phenomenon continued until July 4. Interestingly, similar atmospheric anomalies began in 1908 long before the Tunguska explosion: unusual glows, flashes of light and colored lightning were observed over North America and the Atlantic, over Europe and Russia 3 months before the Tunguska explosion.

Later, in the epicenter of the explosion, enhanced growth of trees began, which indicates genetic mutations. Such anomalies are never observed in places where meteorites fall, but are very similar to those caused by hard ionizing radiation or strong electromagnetic fields.


A cut of larch from the fall region of the Tunguska body, cut down in 1958.
  The annual layer of 1908 looks dark. Accelerated growth is clearly visible.
  larch after 1908, when the tree experienced a radiant burn.

Scientific studies of this phenomenon began only in the 20s of the last century. The site of the fall of the celestial body was investigated by 4 expeditions organized by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and led by Leonid Alekseevich Kulik (1927) and Kirill Pavlovich Florensky (after the Great Patriotic War).   The only thing that was found was small silicate and magnetite balls, which, according to scientists, are the product of the destruction of the Tunguska alien. Researchers did not find a characteristic meteor crater, although later over many years of searching for the debris of the Tunguska meteorite, members of various expeditions found a total of 12 wide conical openings in the disaster area. Nobody knows what depth they go to, since nobody even tried to study them. It was found that around the place where the Tunguska meteorite fell, the forest was felled from the center by a fan, and in the center some of the trees remained standing on the vine, but without branches and without bark. "It was like a forest of telephone poles."

Subsequent expeditions noticed that the area of \u200b\u200bthe felled forest has the shape of a butterfly. Computer modeling of the shape of this region, 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.


Pattern of forest fall around the epicenter of the Tunguska explosion
  on 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 is still unsolved.

  The nature hypothesis of the Tunguska meteorite is many - about 100! None of them gives an explanation of 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 surprisingly 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 hypothesis that the Tunguska alien was the nucleus or a fragment of the cometary nucleus (the comet Encke is considered to be the main suspect), which burst into the Earth’s atmosphere, warmed up from friction against the air and exploded before reaching the Earth’s surface, is recognized as the most probable by most researchers. no crater. The trees were knocked down by the blast wave from an air blast, 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 really was a giant meteorite, but not a stone, but an ice one. This hypothesis explains the absence of traces of a meteorite on Earth and the appearance of silver clouds observed a day after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite onto Earth. According to this hypothesis, they appeared as a result of the passage of a meteorite through the dense layers of the atmosphere: in this case, the release of water molecules and microparticles of ice began, which led to the formation of silver clouds in the upper atmosphere.

It should be noted that the Americans were not the first to hypothesize the icy nature of the Tunguska meteorite: Soviet physicists made this assumption a quarter of a century ago. However, to verify the plausibility of this hypothesis became possible only with the advent of specialized technology, such as the satellite AIM - he conducted research on silver clouds in 2007.



So the area of \u200b\u200bPodkamennaya Tunguska looks from the air these days

The Tunguska catastrophe 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 failed to clearly answer the simple question: what was it?

The history of our planet is rich in vivid and unusual phenomena that still have no scientific explanation. The level of knowledge of the surrounding world of modern science is high, but in some cases a person is not able to explain the true nature of events. Ignorance breeds mystery, and mystery is surrounded by theories and assumptions. The riddle of the Tunguska meteorite is a vivid confirmation of this.

Facts and analysis of the phenomenon

The disaster, which is considered one of the most mysterious and inexplicable phenomena in modern history, occurred on June 30, 1908. In the sky above the deaf and uninhabited areas of the Siberian taiga, a cosmic body of enormous size flashed. The finale of his rapid flight was the strongest air explosion that occurred in the basin of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. Despite the fact that the celestial body exploded at an altitude of about 10 km, the consequences of the explosion were enormous. According to modern estimates of scientists, its strength varied in the range of 10-50 megatons of TNT equivalent. For comparison: the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a power of 13-18 Kt. Soil oscillations after the disaster in the Siberian taiga were recorded in almost all the observatories of the planet from Alaska to Melbourne, and the shock wave four times passed the globe. Electromagnetic disturbances caused by the explosion disabled radio communications for several hours.

In the first minutes after the disaster, unusual atmospheric phenomena were observed in the sky over the entire planet. The inhabitants of Athens and Madrid first saw the auroras, and in the southern latitudes of the night during the week after the fall were bright.

Scientists all over the world have hypothesized what really happened. It was believed that such a large-scale disaster that shook the entire planet was the result of the fall of a large meteorite. The mass of the celestial body that the Earth encountered could be tens, hundreds of tons.

The Podkamennaya Tunguska River - the approximate place where the meteorite fell, gave the name to the phenomenon. The remoteness of these places from civilization and the low technical level of scientific technology did not allow us to accurately determine the coordinates of the fall of a celestial body and determine the true scale of the catastrophe in hot pursuit.

A little later, when some details of what happened became known, eyewitness accounts and photos from the crash site appeared, scientists began to more often tend to the point of view that the Earth collided with an object of unknown nature. It was thought that it might have been a comet. Modern versions put forward by researchers and enthusiasts are more creative. Some consider the Tunguska meteorite to be a consequence of the fall of a spaceship of extraterrestrial origin, while others speak of the terrestrial origin of the Tunguska phenomenon caused by the explosion of a powerful nuclear bomb.

Nevertheless, there is no justified and generally accepted conclusion about what happened, despite the fact that today there are all the necessary technical means for a detailed study of the phenomenon. The mystery of the Tunguska meteorite is comparable in its attractiveness and number of assumptions to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.

Major versions of the scientific community

No wonder they say: the first impression is the most correct. In this context, we can say that the first version of the meteorite nature of the disaster that happened in 1908 is the most reliable and plausible.

Today, any student can find the place of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite on the map, and 100 years ago it was quite difficult to determine the exact place of the cataclysm that shocked the Siberian taiga. As many as 13 years passed before scientists paid close attention to the Tunguska catastrophe. The merit in this belongs to the Russian geophysicist Leonid Kulik, who in the early 20s of the 20th century organized the first expeditions to Eastern Siberia in order to shed light on mysterious events.

The scientist managed to collect a sufficient amount of information about the disaster, stubbornly adhering to the version of the cosmic origin of the explosion of the Tunguska meteorite. The first Soviet expeditions led by Kulik provided a more accurate idea of \u200b\u200bwhat actually happened in the Siberian taiga in the summer of 1908.

The scientist was convinced of the meteorite nature of the object that shook the Earth, so he stubbornly searched for the crater of the Tunguska meteorite. It was Leonid Alekseevich Kulik who first saw the scene of the disaster and took photos of the crash site. However, the scientist's attempts to find fragments or debris of the Tunguska meteorite were unsuccessful. There was no funnel, which inevitably had to remain on the surface of the earth after a collision with a space object of this size. A detailed study of this area and calculations carried out by Kulik, gave reason to believe that the destruction of the meteorite occurred at an altitude and was accompanied by an explosion of great strength.

At the site of the fall or explosion of the object, soil samples and fragments of wood were taken, which were carefully studied. In the proposed area on a vast area (more than 2 thousand hectares), the forest was tumbled down. Moreover, the tree trunks lay in the radial direction, the tops from the center of an imaginary circle. However, the most curious fact is that in the center of the circle the trees remained unharmed. This information gave reason to believe that the Earth collided with a comet. In this case, the comet collapsed as a result of the explosion, and most of the fragments of the celestial body evaporated in the atmosphere before reaching the surface. Other researchers suggested that the Earth probably collided with a spaceship of an extraterrestrial civilization.

Versions of the origin of the Tunguska phenomenon

For all the parameters and descriptions of eyewitnesses, the version of the meteorite body was not entirely successful. The fall occurred at an angle of 50 degrees to the surface of the Earth, which is not characteristic of the flight of space objects of natural origin. A large meteorite, flying along such a trajectory and with cosmic speed, in any case should have left fragments behind itself. Let small, but particles of a space object in the surface layer of the earth's crust should remain.

There are other versions of the origin of the Tunguska phenomenon. Most preferred are the following:

  • collision with a comet;
  • high power air explosion;
  • flight and death of an alien spacecraft;
  • technological disaster.

Each of these hypotheses has a twofold component. One side is oriented and based on existing facts and evidence, the other part of the version is already far-fetched, bordering on science fiction. However, for several reasons, each of the proposed versions has a right to exist.

Scientists admit that the Earth could collide with an ice comet. However, the flight of such large celestial bodies never goes unnoticed and is accompanied by bright astronomical phenomena. By that time, there were the necessary technical capabilities, allowing to see in advance the approach to the Earth of such a large-scale object.

Other scientists (mainly nuclear physicists) began to express the idea that in this case we are talking about a nuclear explosion that stirred up the Siberian taiga. According to many parameters and witness descriptions, the series of occurring events largely coincides with the description of processes in the chain thermonuclear reaction.

However, as a result of data obtained from soil and wood samples taken in the area of \u200b\u200bthe alleged explosion, it turned out that the content of radioactive particles does not exceed the established norm. Moreover, by that time none of the countries of the world had the technical capabilities to carry out such experiments.

Other versions are curious, pointing to the artificial origin of the event. These include the theories of ufologists and admirers of tabloid sensations. Proponents of the alien ship’s crash version suggested that the aftermath of the explosion indicated the man-made nature of the disaster. Alien supposedly flew to us from outer space. However, an explosion of such a force should have left parts or fragments of a spaceship. So far nothing of the kind has been found.

No less interesting is the version about the participation in the events of Nikola Tesla. This great physicist was actively exploring the possibilities of electricity, trying to find an opportunity to curb this energy for the benefit of mankind. Tesla argued that by climbing up several kilometers, it is possible to transmit electrical energy over long distances, using the earth's atmosphere and the power of lightning.

The scientist conducted his experiments and experiments on the transmission of electric energy over long distances exactly at the time when the Tunguska catastrophe happened. As a result of an error in the calculations or under other circumstances, an explosion of plasma or ball lightning occurred in the atmosphere. Perhaps the strongest electromagnetic impulse that hit the planet after the explosion and disabled radio devices is the result of the great scientist’s unsuccessful experience.

The future clue

Be that as it may, the existence of the Tunguska phenomenon is an indisputable fact. Most likely, the technological achievements of man will eventually shed light on the true causes of the disaster that happened more than 100 years ago. Perhaps we are faced with an unprecedented and unknown modern science phenomenon.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below the article. We or our visitors will be happy to answer them.

At about 7 a.m. a large ball of fire flew over the territory of the Yenisei basin from the southeast to northwest. The flight ended in an explosion at an altitude of 7-10 km above the uninhabited area of \u200b\u200bthe taiga. The blast wave was recorded by observatories around the world, including in the western hemisphere. As a result of the explosion, trees were thrown over 2000 km, the glass was knocked out several hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. For several days in the territory from the Atlantic to central Siberia, intense glow of the sky and luminous clouds were observed.

The Tunguska meteoroid is a body, most likely, of comet origin, which caused an air explosion that occurred in the region of 60 ° 55 s. w. 101 ° 57 in. in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 30, 1908 at 7 o’clock 14.5 ± 0.8 minutes local time (0 h 14.5 minutes GMT). The explosion power is estimated at 10-40 megatons, which corresponds to the energy of an average hydrogen bomb.

A blast wave in a radius of 40 kilometers was felled forest, animals were destroyed, people were injured. Due to the powerful flash of light and the flow of hot gases, a forest fire arose, which completed the devastation of the area. In a vast space, starting from the Yenisei River and ending with the Atlantic coast of Europe, several nights BEFORE   and after the event, unprecedented in scale and completely unusual light phenomena were observed, which went down in history under the name “bright nights of the summer of 1908”.

But the exact place of the fall is still not known. The map shows the area of \u200b\u200bthe likely place of impact of the Tunguska meteorite.

There is even a hypothesis that after TM the lake remained.

But the scientific community did not show much interest in this phenomenon. And only almost twenty years after the fall, in 1927, the first researchers who arrived at the site of the fall were discouraged by the picture that opened before them: within a radius of about forty kilometers, all the vegetation was felled and burned, and the roots of the trees pointed to the epicenter. In the center stood pillar trees with cleanly chopped branches. But the most interesting thing is that neither this nor subsequent expeditions could not find even a hint of a meteorite or at least a crater, which according to all laws of physics should have formed at the place of its fall.

It is still not known whether this was a meteorite. For example, several weeks before the events in Tunguska, Nikola Tesla told the press that he could illuminate the journey of the traveler R. Piri’s expedition to the North Pole. And after his words in the night sky over Canada and the USA, people saw unusually silvery clouds. And in an interview with the New York Times, Nikola Tesla claimed that his experimental installations for the wireless transfer of energy could destroy any area of \u200b\u200bthe Earth and turn it into a lifeless desert.

literally on the eve of the "fall of the Tunguska meteorite" near Tesla on the table they saw a detailed map of Siberia, on which there were some marks just in the area where the explosions would subsequently occur. It was a lot of explosions, eyewitnesses claimed that there were five of them. Although there are no craters, probable meteorite impact sites ....

Relatively close is another amazing place "Elyu Cherkacheh" it is also the Death Valley

According to the legends of local residents, huge fireballs sometimes fly out of this area (once a thousand years), which lead to similar cataclysms.

Wiki: en: Tunguska meteorite en: Tunguska event de: Tunguska-Ereignis es: Bólido de Tunguska

This is a description of the attractions of the Tunguska meteorite 102.5 km north of Ust-Ilimsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory (Russia). As well as photos, reviews and a map of the surroundings. Find out the history, coordinates, where it is and how to get there. Check out other places on our interactive map, get more detailed information. Get to know the world better.

On June 30, 1908, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Podkamennaya Tunguska River (approximately 60 km north and 20 km west of the village of Vanavara), a motion of a luminous body in the atmosphere of the earth was recorded. After that, at an altitude of 10-20 km. from the surface of the Earth there was an explosion with a capacity of 4-50 megatons (this is several hundred nuclear bombs). Within a radius of 40 km. trees were felled (this is approximately 5000 sq. km.), and within a radius of 200 km. broken glass houses. After the incident, several more weeks could be observed in the sky above this place.

Eyewitness accounts

... suddenly in the north the sky bifurcated, and a fire appeared in it wide and high above the forest, which covered the entire northern part of the sky. At that moment I felt so hot, as if a shirt had caught fire on me. I wanted to tear and throw off my shirt, but the sky slammed shut, and there was a strong blow. I was thrown from the porch by three fathoms. After the blow, there was such a knock, as if stones had fallen from the sky or shot from cannons, the earth was trembling, and when I lay on the ground I pressed my head, fearing that the stones would not break their heads. At that moment, when the sky opened, a hot wind swept from the north, like a cannon, which left tracks in the form of tracks on the ground. Then it turned out that many of the glasses in the windows were broken out, and an iron tab for the door lock broke at the barn.

Semen Semenov, resident of the Vanavar trading post, located 70 km southeast of the epicenter of the explosion

Our plague then stood on the bank of Avarkitta. Before sunrise, Chekaren and I came from the Dilyushma River, where we stayed with Ivan and Akulina. We slept soundly. Suddenly both woke up at once - someone was pushing us. We heard a whistle and sensed a strong wind. Chekaren shouted to me: “Do you hear how many gogol flies or mergansers?” We were still in the plague and we could not see what was happening in the forest. Suddenly someone pushed me again, so hard that I hit my head on a plague pole and then fell on the hot coals in the hearth. I was scared. Chekaren also got scared, grabbed a pole. We began to scream father, mother, brother, but no one answered. There was some kind of noise behind the plague; one could hear the woods falling. Chekaren and I got out of the bags and already wanted to jump out of the plague, but suddenly the thunder hit very hard. This was the first blow. The earth began to twitch and swing, a strong wind hit our plague and tumbled it down. I was crushed firmly by the poles, but my head was not covered, because the hellos lifted up. Then I saw a terrible wonder: the woods are falling, the needles are burning on them, the dry land on the ground is burning, the deer moss is burning. Smoke, eyes hurt, hot, very hot, you can burn.

Suddenly, over the mountain, where the forest had already fallen, it became very light, and, as if to tell you that the second sun had appeared, the Russians would say: “suddenly flashed,” my eyes hurt, and I even closed them. It seemed that the Russians called "lightning." And immediately there was agdillan, a strong thunder. This was the second blow. The morning was sunny, there were no clouds, our sun was shining brightly, as always, and then a second sun appeared!

Evenki brothers, Chuchanchi and Chekaren Shanyagir, located 30 km from the center of the explosion to the southeast, on the banks of the Avarkit river

Expeditions

It is not surprising, but the first expedition that was sent to the meteorite impact site took place in 1921 with the support of academicians V.I. Vernadsky and A.E. Fersman: mineralogists L.A. Kulikov and P.L. Dravert incident and tried to find out as many facts as possible about this event. In part, they succeeded: pieces of a meteorite were found, the situation was documented, hypotheses of what was happening were formed.

But here's the bad luck: why didn’t the government pay attention to such a powerful explosion that in those years could erase virtually any country from the face of the Earth? Was it really necessary for anyone? Of course, it’s necessary, and one of the versions is as follows: the authorities eliminated the consequences of this incident for 13 years, and after that, national scientists have already admitted there. This is what the meteorite’s fall site looks like today:

  • In the atmosphere of the Earth, not one hundred people saw a brightly luminous cosmic body.
  • Explosion coordinates: 60 ° 53 north latitude and 101 ° 53 east longitude.
  • There is no crater at the place where the “meteorite” fell, and, therefore, it exploded in the air, which cannot be the case with an ordinary meteorite.
  • The trees in the district burned out from the inside, the bark was not affected outside, the effect is like the action of a microwave oven, i.e. something like radio waves.
  • There was an air wave that knocked out the glass of houses and destroyed some buildings.
  • After the explosion, seismic phenomena are observed.
  • The magnetic field near the scene is broken.

Let's look at the version of scientists about what it could be and why it was of no interest to anyone?

Nikola Tesla's experiments with wireless power transmission

Nikola Tesla made a breakthrough in the field of electro and radio theory. His main task in life was to transmit electrical pulses by air, from point A to point B. Entry from the Tesla diary: “The time will come when some scientific genius will come up with a machine capable of destroying one or several armies with one action.” Perhaps this was one of the experiments of the scientist-genius, most of whose works are classified to this day.

Saving the Earth by Outsiders of the Universe

Perhaps a huge meteorite was moving toward the Earth, which in a collision would simply split it. Upon seeing this, alien beings for some reason decided to help us, but they managed to knock down (blow up) a meteorite just before it touched the Earth. Hence, a powerful explosion and the absence of a crater. In support of this hypothesis, metal rods of huge sizes, which were found near the place of incidence, can be cited. No one knows where they came from, but it is possible that the spacecraft was damaged and spent some time on the ground, putting itself in order.

Earth collision with antimatter

Antimatter is the substance that scientists say are made up of. In contact with ordinary matter, i.e. any object, from the Earth, which could be in the air, a tremendous amount of energy is released. 1 gram of antimatter during an explosion could provide all of humanity with energy for several days.

Spacecraft fall

According to Kazantsev, in 1908, an interrupted planetary ship with a nuclear engine invaded the Earth’s atmosphere, which deliberately headed towards the uninhabited space and ended the flight there.

There are also other theories, such as the explosion of a cloud of methane released as a result of volcanic activity, or a meteorite falling from ice. So, for example, near the crash site Lake Cheko unexpectedly formed.

More than 105 years have passed since 1908, and in the hope of getting to the bottom of the truth, not one hundred expeditions were sent to the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. But be that as it may, only those who appeared on the spot immediately after the incident know the true cause of what happened.