There are plenty of versions about the nature of the Tunguska meteorite - from a trivial fragment of an asteroid to an alien spaceship or the great Tesla experiment that got out of control. Numerous expeditions and thorough surveys of the epicenter of the explosion still do not allow scientists to unequivocally answer the question of what happened in the summer of 1908.
Two suns over taiga
Boundless Eastern Siberia, the Yenisei province. At 7 hours 14 minutes, the serenity of the morning was disturbed by an unusual natural phenomenon. In the direction from south to north over the endless taiga a dazzling luminous body swept over, surpassing the sun in brightness. His flight was accompanied by thunderous sounds. Leaving a smoky trail in the sky, the body exploded deafeningly, presumably at an altitude of 5 to 10 km. The epicenter of the aboveground explosion occurred in the area between the rivers Khushma and Kimchu, flowing into the Podkamennaya Tunguska (the right tributary of the Yenisei), not far from the Evenki settlement of Vanavar. The sound wave spread over more than 800 km, and the shock even at a distance of two hundred kilometers was so strong that window panes burst at the buildings.
Relying on the stories of a few eyewitnesses, the phenomenon was dubbed the Tunguska meteorite, since the phenomenon they described was extremely reminiscent of the flight of a large car.
Summer bright nights
The seismic vibrations caused by the explosion were recorded by instruments of many observatories around the globe. In the vast territory from the Yenisei to the Atlantic coast of Europe, the following nights were accompanied by amazing light effects. In the upper layers of the terrestrial mesosphere (from 50 to 100 km), cloud formations were formed, intensely reflecting the sun's rays. Thanks to this, on the day of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, the night did not come at all - after sunset it was possible to read without additional lighting. The intensity of the phenomenon gradually declined, but individual bursts of illumination could be observed for another month.
First expeditions
The military-political and economic events that engulfed the Russian empire in the coming years (the second Russo-Japanese war, the aggravation of the interclass struggle that led to the October Revolution) made us forget about the exceptional phenomenon for a while. But immediately after 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, the Soviet geophysicist L. A. Kulik and researcher, writer and 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 to the Vanavara region were carried out.
In search of a funnel
The main result of the first trip to the place of impact of the Tunguska meteorite was the following discoveries:
- Detection of a taiga radial ram in an area of ​​more than 2000 km 2 .
- At the epicenter, the trees remained standing, but resembled with the complete absence of bark and branches telegraph poles, which once again confirmed the validity of the allegation of the aerial nature of the explosion. A swampy lake was 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, as well as film and photography of the fallen taiga. Researchers partially succeeded in pumping water from the funnel, but the magnetometric samples taken showed a complete absence of meteorite material.
Subsequent trips to the disaster area also yielded no results in terms of searches for fragments of the "space guest", with the exception of the smallest particles of silicates and magnetites.
"Stone" Jankowski
One episode is worth mentioning separately. During the third trip, an expedition worker Konstantin Yankovsky during an independent hunt in the area of ​​the Chugrim River (a tributary of Khushma) found and photographed a brownish stone block of a cellular structure, very similar to a meteorite. The length of the find was more than two meters, width and height - about a meter. The 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 a 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 Siberia in 1908 were found. And as you know, the less facts, the more fantasies and assumptions. After a century, not one of the hypotheses has received unanimous recognition in the scientific community. There are still many supporters of the meteorite theory. Her adherents are firmly convinced that in the end a notorious crater with the remains of the Tunguska meteorite will nevertheless be discovered. The most optimal place for searches is called the Southern Swamp of the interfluve.
The Soviet planetologist and geochemist, the head of one of the expeditions to the Vanavara region (1958) K.P. Florensky suggested that the meteorite could have a loose, cellular structure. Then, when heated in the Earth’s atmosphere, the meteorite 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 (the charge as a result of friction against the dense layers of the Earth’s atmosphere could reach a colossal magnitude of 10 5 coulomb) and the surface of the planet.
Academician Vernadsky explains the absence of a crater by the fact that the Tunguska meteorite could be a cloud of cosmic dust that invaded our atmosphere with gigantic speed.
The nucleus of a comet?
There are many supporters of the hypothesis that in 1908 our planet collided with a small comet. Such an assumption was first expressed by the Soviet astronomer V. Fasenkov and the British J. Whipple. In favor of this theory is the fact that in the region where the cosmic body falls, the soil is rich in intersperses of silicate and magnetite particles.
According to the physicist G. Bybin, an active promoter of the “cometary” hypothesis, the core of the “tailed wanderer” consisted mainly of substances of low strength and high volatility (frozen gases and water) with an insignificant admixture of solid dust material. Corresponding calculations and the application of computer simulation methods show that in this case, it is possible to satisfactorily interpret all the phenomena observed at the time of the fall of the body and in the following days.
The "explosion" of the writer Kazantsev
His vision of what happened was proposed in 1946 by the Soviet science-fiction writer A.P. Kazantsev. In the story "Explosion", published in the anthology "Around the World", the writer, through the mouth of his character - a physicist - presented to the public two new versions of the clue to the mystery of the Tunguska meteorite:
- The cosmic body, which invaded the Earth’s atmosphere in 1908, was a “uranium” meteorite, resulting in an atomic explosion over the taiga.
- Another cause of such an explosion could be a catastrophe of an alien space ship.
Alexander Kazantsev made his conclusions on the basis of the similarity of light, sound and other phenomena that arose as a result of 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 theories of the writer, although they were sharply criticized by official science, found their admirers and adherents.
Nikola Tesla and Tunguska meteorite
Some researchers give the Siberian phenomenon a completely earthly 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 the wireless transmission of energy over long distances. At the end of the nineteenth century, the “lord of lightning” with the help of his miraculous tower in Colorado Springs (USA) without the use of conductors lit 200 light bulbs remote from the source at a distance of 25 miles. Later, working on the Wardenclyffe project, the scientist was going to transmit electricity through the air to anywhere in the world. Experts believe it is likely that the initial clot of energy was generated by the great Tesla. Having overcome the atmosphere of the Earth and having accumulated a colossal charge, the ray was reflected from the ozone layer and, according to the calculated trajectory, spilled out all its power over the uninhabited 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 were preserved.
Fell from below?
The remaining hypotheses of the “terrestrial” origin of the phenomenon are in little agreement with circumstances recorded in 1908. So, geologist V. Epifanov and astrophysicist V. Kund suggested that an aboveground explosion could occur 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 Kando (Galissia, Spain) in 1994. It is proved that the cause of the explosion on the Iberian Peninsula was precisely the discharge 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 Vanavar volcanic tube.
Following fundamental science
After the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, year after year, with the development of science, new theories appeared. So, after 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 fact that antimatter did not annihilate much earlier, colliding with particles of matter in outer space.
With the development of quantum generators (lasers), convinced supporters appeared that in 1908 a beam of a cosmic laser of unknown generation penetrated the earth's atmosphere, but this theory was not widely used.
Finally, in recent years, the American physicists A. Jackson and M. Rian hypothesized 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 are completely inconsistent with the observed picture.
Conservation area
More than a hundred years have passed since the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Photo and video material collected by the participants of Kulik’s first expeditions, detailed maps of the area compiled by them are still of great scientific value. Recognizing the uniqueness of the phenomenon, in October 1995, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, a state reserve was established in the area of Podkamennaya Tunguska on an area of ​​about 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. Aware of the importance 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 detection of dangerous 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 revealed. Of the most notorious in recent decades, it is worth noting the statement by the head of the TKF (Tunguska Phenomenon Space) fund, 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 crashed in 1908.
The head of the expedition Vladimir Alekseev (2010, Troitsk Institute for Innovative and Thermonuclear Research) also reported an amazing find. When scanning the bottom of the Suslovskaya funnel with a georadar, a gigantic mass of space ice was discovered. According to the assurances of 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. Perhaps humanity is faced with a phenomenon whose essence and nature cannot be comprehended at the current level of development? One of the researchers of the Tunguska phenomenon remarked very accurately on this subject: perhaps we are like savages who observed the crash of an airliner in the jungle.