What new facts about the Tunguska meteorite scientists have recently learned: Mysterious explosion 100 years ago in Siberia

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the summer of 1908, a mysterious explosion took place in Siberia, which even today excites the minds of scientific researchers. Over the interfluve of the rivers Lena and N. Tunguska, a giant ball swept loudly and brightly, the flight of which ended in a powerful rupture. Despite the fact that that case of a space body falling to Earth is considered the largest in modern history, the fragments were never found. The energy of the explosion exceeded the power of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

An explosion of unprecedented power

Shortly before the celestial body entered the earth's atmosphere, strange phenomena were noted all over the world, testifying to something unusual. In Russia, the court scientists noted the appearance of silvery clouds, as if illuminated from within. British astronomers were perplexed about the arrival of unprecedented "white nights" for their latitude. These and other anomalies lasted about three days until the day of the incident. On June 30, 1908, at a quarter past seven, the meteorite reached the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere. The body shone so brightly that its radiance spread over great distances.

Eyewitnesses described the flying fireball as an elongated burning object moving swiftly and with a sharp sound. And soon an explosion thundered near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river, half a hundred kilometers north of the Vanavara Evenk camp. It was so powerful that it spread over distances of over a thousand kilometers. Glasses spilled out in camps and villages within a radius of at least 300 kilometers from the shock wave, and an earthquake provoked by a presumably meteorite was recorded by seismographic stations in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Germany. On an area of more than 2 thousand square meters. km. uprooted huge centuries-old trees. The thermal radiation accompanying the explosion led to a severe forest fire, which crowned the general picture of destruction.

Consequences and eyewitnesses

Inhabitants of the small settlement of Vanavara and a few nomadic Evenks who hunted near the epicenter of the explosion became a few witnesses of what was happening. The subsequent fluctuations in the magnetic field caused a magnetic storm, the parameters of which were equated to the consequences of high-altitude nuclear explosions.

By the end of the first day after the disaster in the northern hemisphere, from Krasnoyarsk to the shores of the Atlantic, anomalous atmospheric phenomena were observed: unusually colored bright twilight, bright night sky, bright silvery clouds, halos around the sun during the day. At night, the sky shone with such power that people could not sleep. As scientists later explained, clouds formed at a level of 80 km above the earth's surface, reflecting sunlight, created the effect of a white night where naturally this could not be. According to eyewitnesses, in several cities of latitude it was possible for several nights in a row to freely read a newspaper on the street without additional illumination.

First explorations and non-standard version with aliens

The first attempts to investigate an inexplicable phenomenon were made only in the 1920s. Four scientists of the expedition, coordinated by the USSR Academy of Sciences under the leadership of the mineralogist Leonid Kulik, went to the place of the alleged fall of the object. Fragments of the exploded body were not found, they had to be content with only the recollections of several witnesses of the catastrophe, and the ensuing Great Patriotic War stopped the research altogether. In 1988, a research expedition of the established public foundation "Tunguska Phenomenon" went to Siberia. The work was supervised by Yuri Lavbin, Corresponding Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Arts.

The expedition members managed to find large metal rods near Vanavara. Then Lavbin put forward an unusual version of what happened, allowing an alien highly developed civilization to participate in what happened. According to the head of the researchers, a huge comet was approaching the planet Earth. This information was received by representatives of extraterrestrial life and, saving earthlings from inevitable death, sent a space patrol ship in the direction of our planet. The alien ship, intending to split the comet, was subjected to a powerful attack by the cosmic body and failed. But during the rescue operation, he managed to damage the comet's nucleus, which crumbled into fragments. Some of them fell to the Earth, and the main part flew past the Earth. Having received serious damage, the attacking alien ship was forced to sit on Siberian territory for repairs, after which he hastily returned home. And the found metal parts are nothing more than the remains of failed blocks.

Modern conclusions

Most modern scientists do not consider the ufological hypotheses of the Tunguska incident. The most authoritative theories agreed on the fact that a large body exploded in the air above the Siberian river, arriving to Earth from space. The difference of opinion concerns, basically, only the properties of an unidentified object, its origin and the angle of entry into the earth's atmosphere. Recent studies have indicated that most likely the space body was not monolithic, but was something porous. Possibly composed of a substance similar to pumice. Otherwise, large debris would certainly have been found at the site of the explosion.

Back in the 30s of the last century, a hypothesis appeared that the Tunguska meteorite was a huge piece of ice. This, according to domestic and foreign scientists, is confirmed by the rainbow stripes that followed the flying body, and the sparkling clouds that hung after the fall. Today, numerical calculations are presented that confirm this version. The substance of the exploded object could not consist of pure ice, scientists admit the impurities that fell after the explosion to the ground. But most of the material was nevertheless distributed in the atmosphere or sprayed over a huge territory, which logically explains the absence of debris and an impact crater. There is also a version that the Tunguska lake Cheko is the meteorite crater, at the bottom of which material similar to the debris was found. But scientists never came to a consensus.

You can learn about what meteorites look like and what they are made of by visiting Namibia, where it is still located Goba meteorite.