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

At about seven o'clock in the morning local time on June 30, 1908, a large fireball flashed over the territory of the Yenisei River basin. The flight ended with a powerful explosion at an altitude of about 7 kilometers, which was recorded by observatories around the world. According to modern estimates, the power of the explosion reached 50 megatons, which is comparable to the explosion of the most powerful one. Glass in houses flew out several hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion.

If the Tunguska meteorite had exploded while passing over Europe, the explosion would have been capable of completely destroying a city like St. Petersburg. If this incident had happened half a century later, such an explosion could well have been mistaken for a nuclear attack and caused the outbreak of World War III. But, fortunately, the fall occurred in a sparsely populated region of Siberia.

In 2013, interest in the “Tunguska phenomenon” grew again after a meteorite fell in the Chebarkul area.

Research into the incident in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area has continued for more than a century, but to this day there is no clear answer to the question: what exactly happened on June 30?

As of 1970, scientists have recorded 77 different theories about the nature of the “Tunguska phenomenon”. Theories are divided into technogenic, geophysical, meteorite, antimatter, religious and synthetic.

Over the past 40 years, there have been no fewer versions, and even the list of hypotheses considered to be the main ones numbers more than two dozen.

We have selected eight of the most interesting versions of the incident on Podkamennaya Tunguska.

1. Meteorite

According to the classical hypothesis, on June 30, 1908, a large stone or iron meteorite, or a whole swarm of meteorites, fell to Earth.

The most obvious version has one weak point - numerous expeditions to the place where the supposed meteorite fell did not allow the discovery of debris and remains of the meteorite substance. Moreover, the forest at the site of the cosmic catastrophe was felled over a large area, but trees remained standing exactly in the place where the meteorite crater should have been located.

Supporters of the meteorite version say - yes, there is no solid meteorite, it completely collapsed, and numerous small fragments fell to the Earth. The problem is that it has not been possible to find these fragments in any significant quantity to this day.

2. Comet

The “comet” version arose after the meteorite one. Its main difference lies in the nature of the substance that caused the explosion. Comets, unlike meteorites, have a loose structure, an integral part of which is ice. As a result, the comet's substance began to rapidly deteriorate as it entered the Earth's atmosphere, and the explosion completely completed what had begun. That is why, say supporters of the version, it is not possible to detect traces of the substance on Earth - they simply were not there.

Comet and meteorite theories exist in various forms, sometimes intertwined with each other. However, no one has yet been able to convincingly prove that they are right.

3. Alien ship

It is logical that the author of the version about the artificial nature of the “Tunguska phenomenon” belongs to the science fiction writer. In 1946, in the magazine “Around the World”, the Soviet writer Alexander Kazantsev published the story “Explosion”, in which he expressed the version that an alien spaceship crashed in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area. According to Kazantsev, the ship was equipped with a nuclear engine, which exploded. Comparing the explosion of the “Tunguska Phenomenon” with the explosions of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the writer noted that the standing forest at the epicenter is very similar to the residential buildings that survived the epicenter of the explosion in Hiroshima. Kazantsev also noted the similarity of the seismograms of these events.

Kazantsev’s version received a lively response and found a lot of supporters who developed and transformed it.

Scientists have always been extremely skeptical about the “alien” explanation of the incident, but in fact, in this case, the main problem is the same - there is no material evidence.

Already in the 1980s, Alexander Kazantsev adjusted his version. In his opinion, aliens in distress took the ship away from Earth, and it exploded in space, and the “Tunguska meteorite” was the landing of their orbital module.

Fallen forest in the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell. Photo: RIA Novosti

4. Nikola Tesla's experiment

Outstanding American Serbian-born physicist Nikola Tesla at the beginning of the 20th century he was considered the “master of electricity.” Among his many works were experiments related to the technology of wireless transmission of electricity over long distances.

According to this hypothesis, on June 30, 1908, Tesla fired an “energy supershot” from his laboratory into the Alaska region in order to practically test the capabilities of his equipment. However, the imperfection of technology led to the fact that the energy directed by Tesla went much further and caused enormous destruction in the Podkamennaya Tunguska region.

Having learned about the consequences of the tests, Tesla chose not to voice his involvement in the incident. The scale of the destruction forced Tesla to stop such large-scale experiments.

The weak point of this theory is that there is no evidence that Nikola Tesla conducted the experiment on June 30, 1908. Moreover, the laboratory from which the “supershot” was allegedly fired no longer belonged to Tesla by that moment.

5. Antimatter Impact

In 1948, the American scientist Lincoln La Paz put forward the idea that the “Tunguska phenomenon” is explained by the collision of matter with antimatter from space. As is known, during annihilation, the mutual destruction of matter and antimatter occurs with the release of a large amount of energy. The theory is confirmed by the presence of radioactive isotopes in wood material from the explosion site.

Soviet physicist Boris Konstantinov in the 1960s he stated even more clearly - a comet consisting of antimatter had invaded the Earth’s atmosphere. That is why it is simply impossible to find its wreckage.

The lack of knowledge about the nature and properties of antimatter allows us to consider such a version acceptable, but most scientists are skeptical about it.

6. Ball lightning

Back in 1908, the first researchers of the “Tunguska phenomenon” suggested that the cause of the explosion was a huge ball lightning.

To this day, the nature of such a rare natural phenomenon as ball lightning has not been fully studied. Perhaps this is why the “ball lightning” version of events gained popularity among scientists in the 1980s.

According to this version, a giant ball lightning exploded at the scene of the disaster, 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.

7. Cloud of cosmic dust

As early as 1908, French astronomer Felix de Roy suggested that on June 30 the Earth collided with a cloud of cosmic dust. This version was supported in 1932 by the famous Academician Vladimir Vernadsky, adding that the movement of cosmic dust through the atmosphere caused a powerful development of noctilucent clouds from June 30 to July 2, 1908. Later, in 1961, Tomsk biophysicist and enthusiast of studying the “Tunguska phenomenon” Gennady Plekhanov proposed a more detailed scheme, according to which the Earth crossed an interstellar cloud of cosmic dust, one of the large conglomerates of which was what later became known as the “Tunguska meteorite”.

The same Gennady Plekhanov put forward a humorous version, which, with some stretch, can be considered “version 7 bis”. Having been bitten by midges during one of the expeditions to the Podkamennaya Tunguska region, he proposed the idea that on June 30, 1908, a cloud of mosquitoes with a volume of at least 5 cubic kilometers gathered in this place, as a result of which a volumetric thermal explosion occurred, resulting in the fall of the forest.

8. Spaceship launch

Another original version of the “Tunguska phenomenon” is associated with science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It was expressed in a humorous way in their story “Monday Begins on Saturday.” According to it, on June 30, 1908, a spaceship was launched in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area. Its landing happened a little later, that is, in July, since it was a ship not just of aliens, but of contrarian aliens, that is, people from the Universe, where time moves in the direction opposite to ours.

But if the Strugatsky brothers’ version of the contrarian aliens was expressed in a humorous manner, then in the early 1990s the famous ufologist, leader of the Kosmopoisk association Vadim Chernobrov, proposed it as an absolutely serious explanation of the “Tunguska phenomenon”.

While researchers are unable to find convincing and definitive confirmation of any of the versions of the “Tunguska phenomenon”, each of them, despite understandable skepticism, has the right to exist.

Even the one expressed by one of the Chelyabinsk pensioners in relation to another, Chebarkul meteorite:

Yes, these are some kind of drug addicts!

On June 30, 1908, in the area of ​​the Podkamennaya Tunguska River (approximately 60 km north and 20 km west of the village of Vanavara), the movement of a luminous body in the earth’s atmosphere was recorded. After that, at an altitude of 10-20 km. An explosion with a power of 4-50 megatons (that's several hundred nuclear bombs) was heard from the surface of the Earth. Within a radius of 40 km. trees were felled (this is approximately 5000 sq. km.), and within a radius of 200 km. windows of houses were broken. After the incident, it was possible to observe the sky above this place for several weeks.

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 of the 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, a resident of the Vanavara trading post, located 70 km southeast of the epicenter of the explosion

Our tent then stood on the bank of Avarkitta. Before sunrise, Chekaren and I came from the Dilyushma River, where we visited Ivan and Akulina. We fell fast asleep. Suddenly we both woke up at once - someone was pushing us. We heard a whistle and felt a strong wind. Chekaren also shouted to me: “Do you hear how many goldeneyes or mergansers are flying?” We were still in the plague and we couldn’t see what was happening in the forest. Suddenly someone pushed me again, so hard that I hit my head on a crazy pole and then fell onto the hot coals in the fireplace. I was afraid. Chekaren also got scared and grabbed the pole. We started shouting for father, mother, brother, but no one answered. There was some noise behind the tent; you could hear the trees falling. Chekaren and I got out of the bags and were about to jump out of the chum, but suddenly thunder struck very hard. This was the first blow. The earth began to twitch and sway, a strong wind hit our tent and knocked it over. I was firmly pressed down by the poles, but my head was not covered, because the ellune had lifted up. Then I saw a terrible miracle: the forests were falling, the pine needles on them were burning, the dead wood on the ground was burning, the reindeer moss was burning. There is smoke all around, it hurts your eyes, it’s hot, very hot, you could burn.

Suddenly, over the mountain where the forest had already fallen, it became very light, and, how can I tell you, as if a second sun had appeared, the Russians would say: “suddenly it suddenly flashed,” my eyes began to hurt, and I even closed them. It looked like what the Russians call “lightning.” And immediately there was agdylyan, 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 Chekarena Shanyagir, who were located 30 km from the center of the explosion to the southeast, on the banks of the Avarkitta River

Expeditions

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

But here’s the problem: why didn’t the country’s government pay attention to such a powerful explosion, which in those years could have wiped out virtually any country from the face of the Earth? Was this really not necessary for anyone? Of course it is necessary, and one version is this: the authorities spent 13 years eliminating the consequences of this incident, and after that they allowed people’s scientists to go there. This is what the meteorite crash site looks like today:

• In the Earth's atmosphere, not a single 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 site where the “meteorite” fell, and, therefore, it exploded in the air, which cannot happen with an ordinary meteorite.
• The trees in the area were burned out from the inside, the outside bark was not damaged, the effect is similar to the action of a microwave oven, i.e. something similar to radio waves.
• There was an air wave that broke the windows of houses and destroyed some buildings.
• After the explosion, seismic phenomena are observed.
• The magnetic field near the accident site is disrupted.

Let's look at scientists' versions of what it could be and why no one was interested in it?

Nikola Tesla's experiments with wireless power transmission

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

Saving the Earth by outsiders of the universe

Perhaps a huge meteorite was moving towards the Earth, which would simply split it apart upon collision. Seeing this, the alien creatures for some reason decided to help us, but they managed to shoot down (explode) the meteorite just before it touched the Earth. Hence, a powerful explosion and the absence of a crater. This hypothesis can be confirmed by huge metal rods that were found near the crash site. No one knows where they came from, but it is possible that the spacecraft was damaged and spent some time on earth getting itself in order.

Collision of the Earth with antimatter

Antimatter is the substance from which, according to scientists, they are composed. Upon contact with ordinary matter, i.e. Any object from the Earth that could end up in the air releases a colossal amount of energy. 1 gram of antimatter in an explosion could provide all of humanity with energy for several days.

Spaceship crash

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

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

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

Podkamennaya Tunguska is a river in Russia, which is the right tributary of the Yenisei. It flows in the Irkutsk region and Krasnoyarsk region, where the Tunguska meteorite fell. This event did not receive due attention at the time. However, later they began to study it closely. And they found nothing.

On the right bank of the river is the village of Podkamennaya Tunguska. After an unusual incident, this area became known throughout the world. The event still worries researchers. And not only in Russia. The phenomenon of the Tunguska meteorite excites the minds of foreign scientists.

The most famous phenomenon of the 20th century

In what year and where did the Tunguska meteorite fall? The fall occurred on June 30, 1908. But the old style is June 17th. In the morning at 7:17 a.m. the sky over Siberia lit up with a flash. An object with a fiery tail was seen flying towards Earth.

The explosion that rang out in the Podkamennaya Tunguska basin was deafening. It was 2 thousand times greater than the power of the atomic explosion in Hiroshima.

For reference, in 1945, 2 atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They did not reach the ground, exploding in the atmosphere, but the force of the explosion killed many people. In place of flourishing cities, a desert formed. Today 2 cities are completely rebuilt.

Consequences of the disaster

An explosion of unknown origin destroyed 2000 km 2 of taiga, killing all living things that lived in this section of the forest. The shock wave shook all of Eurasia and circled the globe twice.

Barometers at Cambridge and Petersfield stations recorded a jump in atmospheric pressure. The entire territory from Siberia to the borders of Western Europe admired the white nights. The phenomenon lasted from June 30 to July 2.

Scientists from Berlin and Hamburg were attracted by the noctilucent clouds in the sky in those early days. They were a collection of small particles of ice that were thrown there by a volcanic eruption. However, no eruption was recorded.

But the incident did not attract the attention it deserved. They somehow quickly forgot about him, and then a revolution followed, a war. They returned to the study of the Tunguska meteorite only decades later.

And they found nothing except the consequences of the explosion in the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell. No fragments of a celestial body, nor any other traces of a space guest.

Eyewitness accounts

Fortunately, we still managed to interview the residents of Podkamennaya Tunguska. A few days before the explosion, people observed unusual flashes in the sky.

The explosion itself shook all of Siberia. Local residents saw animals thrown into the air by its force. The houses shook. And a bright flash appeared in the sky. The rumble was heard for another 20 minutes after the fall of the unknown body. By the way, many argue that in fact there was more than one blow. The old Tungus Chuchancha spoke about this. At first, 4 powerful blows followed with equal frequency, and the 5th sounded somewhere in the distance. Residents of the village where the Tunguska meteorite fell felt the full force of the explosion.

At this time, all seismographic stations in Russia, Europe and America recorded a strange shaking of the earth's crust.

People claim that after the explosion there was a strange, frightening silence. There were no birds or other usual forest sounds to be heard. The sky dimmed, and the leaves on the trees first turned yellow, then red. By nightfall they had completely turned black. In the direction of Podkamennaya Tunguska there was a solid silver wall for 8 hours.

It is difficult to say what exactly people saw in the sky - everyone has their own version. Someone talks about a celestial body (each of the narrators talks about a different form), someone about a fire that engulfed the entire sky. “My shirt seemed to be on fire,” said an eyewitness to the events.

God of Thunder

Today, trees are growing again at the site of the meteorite fall. Their increased growth immediately after the disaster indicates genetic mutations. They are never found at meteorite impact sites, which refutes the logical version. Perhaps a strong electromagnetic field formed where the Tunguska meteorite fell.

The giants hit by the blast wave still lie in neat rows, indicating the direction of the explosion. Burnt trees with their roots torn out are reminders of a strange disaster.

The expedition, which arrived at the scene of the explosion in the summer of 2017, examined the fallen trees with a specialist. Local residents, representatives of the peoples of the lower Amur (Evenks, Oroks) believed that they had met the thunder god Agda - the devourer of people. It is noteworthy that the place where the Tunguska meteorite fell actually resembles a giant bird or butterfly in shape.

Where did the Tunguska meteorite actually fall?

The heart of the disaster in the taiga resembles a crater. However, it is not. The cosmic body (most researchers believe that this was it) probably broke into small pieces when it collided with the atmosphere. They could have been scattered in different parts of the taiga. Therefore, no traces of a cosmic body were found at the epicenter of the explosion.

Lake Cheko is located just 8 km from the area where the meteorite fell. Its depth reaches 50 meters and has a cone-shaped shape. Italian geologists suggested that the lake was formed as a result of a meteorite impact.

However, in 2016, their Russian colleagues took samples of lake sediments and submitted them for examination. It turned out that the lake is at least 280 years old. Perhaps even more.

One of the correspondents wrote that one of his neighbors observed a flying star that fell into the water. Will meteorite particles never be found?

The comet burned up before falling

One of the most popular and plausible versions is a comet that burned up in the atmosphere. A body consisting of dirt, ice and snow could simply not reach the Earth. During the fall, it heated up to several thousand degrees and scattered into small pieces at an altitude of 5-7 km above the ground. Therefore, its remains were not found.

However, in the soil where the Tunguska meteorite fell, traces of cometary dirt and water were preserved. They are preserved in sphagnum mosses, which form peat. The layer formed in 1908 contains a high content of cosmic dust.

Black and white?

The theory put forward by Andrei Tyunyaev has already been published in the magazine. It is based on the fact of the existence of black and white holes.

The black hole absorbs microparticles. No one will ever know what happens to them after falling into her mouth. A black hole transforms matter into space. A white hole is capable of forming this matter from space. Both of them perform the function of substance circulation. That is, they perform opposite tasks. Tyunyaev is sure that all celestial bodies are formed precisely thanks to the white hole.

Perhaps the Tunguska meteorite really was the result of a white hole. But where did it come from in Siberia? There are 2 theories: either it was formed in outer space, near the Earth, or it emerged from the depths of our planet. And the explosion could have provoked contact of hydrogen, which is released during the operation of the white hole, with oxygen. During an explosion, only water is formed, of which there is a lot in the area of ​​the incident.

The white hole is a phenomenon that is still little studied and even lacks a sufficient number of theories. Scientists know how its black sister is formed. Perhaps they work together and complement each other. Perhaps these are two sides of one object, which is connected by a wormhole.

Damn cemetery

Strange phenomena in the form of silence and blackened leaves may indicate a distortion of time, physicists say. The fact is that not far from the place where the Tunguska meteorite fell (the facts confirm this information) there is an anomalous zone. It is called the Devil's Cemetery. This place gained terrible fame back in the mid-thirties.

The shepherds lost several cows while moving their herd to the Kova River. Puzzled, they and the dogs began to search for them. And soon they came to a desert area completely devoid of vegetation. There were torn cows and dead birds lying there. The dogs ran away with their tails between their legs, and the men managed to pull the cows out with hooks. But their meat turned out to be inedible. The dogs that ran out into the clearing also soon died from unknown diseases.

This area has been explored by many expeditions. Four went missing in the taiga, the rest died shortly after visiting the Devil's Cemetery.

Local residents claim that at night they see strange lights in those places and hear heartbreaking screams. Foresters are sure that they see ghosts in the forest.

Sensational assumption

Science fiction writer Kazantsev in 1908 voiced the version that an alien ship fell to Earth and lost control. Therefore, the explosion occurred in the middle of the taiga, and not in a city or village - the ship was deliberately sent to a deserted area in order to save human lives.

Kazantsev based his version on the assumption that the explosion was not nuclear, but airborne. Surprisingly, this theory was confirmed by scientists in 1958 - the explosion was indeed airborne. Medical examinations were carried out. And the local residents did not find any signs of radiation sickness. Perhaps, experts believe, a substance unknown to science fell to Earth along with the meteorite. It kills all living things and distorts the course of time.

Secrets of the Tunguska meteorite and interesting facts about it

To date, none of the hypotheses (and there are more than a hundred of them) can explain all the features that accompanied the explosion.

Some interesting facts about the Tunguska meteorite:

1. If the disaster had occurred 4 hours later, but in the same place where the Tunguska meteorite fell, the city of Vyborg would have been destroyed. And St. Petersburg was significantly damaged.
2. 708 eyewitnesses of the event indicated different directions of movement of the cosmic body. Most likely, two, or maybe three objects collided at once.
3. Glass shook, objects fell, dishes broke. Women ran out into the street in horror and cried. They believed that the end of the world had come.
4. There is a version that the disaster was a consequence of the Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. God was angry with St. Petersburg, so the direction of the shock wave pointed to this city.
5. Thunderous sounds were heard both during the flight of the car and before and after its landing. And its light was so bright that it surpassed the sun.
6. The power of the explosion is estimated by experts at 40-50 megatons. This is thousands of times more powerful than the atomic bomb that America dropped on Hiroshima.

Finally

The place where the Tunguska meteorite fell (which area of ​​the epicenter of events is indicated above - this is the Krasnoyarsk Territory) is still of interest to researchers. Perhaps this phenomenon is one of the most mysterious events of the last century. Whether it will one day be solved is unknown.

Tunguska meteorite - a hypothetical body, probably of cometary origin, which allegedly caused an air explosion that occurred in the area of ​​the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 17, 1908 at 7:14.5 ± 0.8 minutes local time. The power of the explosion is estimated at 40-50 megatons, which corresponds to the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb.
Story
On June 30, 1908, a giant fireball flew over the vast territory of Central Siberia in the area between the Lower Tunguska and Lena rivers. The flight ended with an explosion at an altitude of 7-10 km above an uninhabited taiga region. The blast wave was recorded by observatories around the world, including in the Western Hemisphere. As a result of the explosion, trees were knocked down over an area of ​​more than 2,000 km², and window glass in houses was broken several hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. For several days, intense sky glow and luminous clouds were observed from the Atlantic to central Siberia. The blast wave destroyed a forest within a radius of 40 kilometers, killed animals, and injured people. Due to a powerful flash of light and a stream of hot gases, a forest fire broke out, completing the devastation of the area. Over a vast area, starting from the Yenisei River and ending with the Atlantic coast of Europe, for several nights in a row, 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.”
Several research expeditions were sent to the disaster area, starting with the 1927 expedition led by L. A. Kulik. The material of the hypothetical Tunguska meteorite was not found in significant quantities, but microscopic silicate and magnetite balls were discovered, as well as elevated levels of some elements, indicating a possible cosmic origin of the substance. Scientists have put forward many hypotheses about the explosion. Now there are about 100 of them. Adherents of the first believe that a giant meteorite fell to Earth. Beginning in 1927, the first Soviet scientific expeditions searched for traces of it in the area of ​​the explosion. However, the usual meteor crater was not at the scene. Subsequent expeditions noticed that the area of ​​fallen forest had a characteristic “butterfly” shape, directed from east-southeast to west-northwest. A study of this area 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 kilometers.
Astronomer V. Fesenkov put forward a version of the collision of the Earth with a comet. According to another version, it was a body that had high kinetic energy, had low density, low strength and high volatility, which led to its rapid destruction and evaporation as a result of sharp braking in the lower dense layers of the atmosphere.
Tunguska meteorite: facts and hypotheses
In the earth's atmosphere, about once a year, a miniature Tunguska disaster occurs - an explosion of an asteroid or comet with a power approximately equal to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
On June 30, 1908, at about 7 a.m. local time, a fiery object flared up like the sun over the territory of Eastern Siberia in the area between the Lena and Podkamennaya Tunguska rivers. 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 on the east by the Yenisei, on the south by the Tashkent-Stavropol-Sevastopol-northern Italy-Bordeaux line, on the west by the Atlantic coast of Europe, unprecedented in scale and completely unusual light phenomena unfolded, which went down in history as “light nights of the summer of 1908." The clouds that formed at an altitude of about 80 km intensely reflected the sun's rays, thereby creating the effect of bright nights even where there were Haven't seen it before. Throughout this gigantic territory, on the evening of June 30, night practically did not fall: the entire sky was glowing. This phenomenon continued for several nights. A space hurricane turned the rich taiga into a dead forest cemetery for many years. A study of the consequences of the disaster showed that the explosion energy amounted to 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. 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 the fall of the 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.
Hypotheses
More than a hundred different hypotheses have been expressed about what happened in the Tunguska taiga: from an 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. However, most scientists are inclined to believe that it was still a meteorite that exploded above the surface of the Earth.

Fall of a giant meteorite. 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. The total area of ​​fallen forest is about 2,200 square kilometers. 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.
Earth collision with a comet. This hypothesis was put forward by Academician Vasily Fesenkov, an astronomer by profession. Even material evidence was found in the peat bogs - silicate and magnetite balls, but too little. This circumstance made it difficult to accept Fesenkov’s assumption as a hypothesis, since, according to reasonable calculations by employees of the Institute of Physics, the observed a blast wave could be produced by a charge equivalent to 20‑40 tons of TNT, which would produce a lot of fragments. According to another version, a body that had high kinetic energy, but had low density, low strength and high volatility, collided with the Earth, which led to its rapid destruction and evaporation as a result of sharp braking in the lower dense layers of the atmosphere. Such a body could be a comet, consisting of frozen water and gases in the form of “snow,” interspersed with refractory particles.
Alien ship . In 1988, members of the research expedition of the Siberian Public Foundation “Tunguska Space Phenomenon”, led by corresponding member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts Yuri Lavbin, discovered metal rods 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, in order to save the Earth from a global catastrophe, sent their sentinel spaceship. He was supposed to split the comet. But 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 on Earth, and most of them 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. Over many years of searching for the debris of the space alien, 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, for the first time, researchers 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 fall of the Tunguska meteorite, Krasnoyarsk researchers discovered quartz cobblestones with mysterious inscriptions. 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 “joined” 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 by an extraterrestrial civilization and exploded as a result of an unsuccessful landing.

Ice comet. The latest hypothesis is from 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 crash 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.
Thousands of researchers are trying to understand what happened on June 30, 1908 in the Siberian taiga. In addition to Russian expeditions, international expeditions are regularly sent to the Tunguska disaster area. On October 9, 1995, by decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Tungussky State Nature Reserve was established with a total area of ​​296,562 hectares. Its territory is unique. It stands out among other nature reserves and wildlife sanctuaries in the world in that it is the only area on the globe that provides the opportunity to directly study the environmental consequences of space disasters. In the Tunguska Nature Reserve, due to the uniqueness of the 1908 event, as an exception, limited tourist activities are allowed for the purpose of environmental education of the population, familiarization with the beautiful natural sites of the reserve, the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. There are three environmental education routes. Two of them are by water, along the picturesque rivers Kimchu and Khushma, the third is on foot along the “Kulik trail” - the famous route of the discoverer of the site of the Tunguska meteorite disaster.

In search of the Tunguska meteorite
Many people tried to find the Tunguska meteorite. The first such attempt was made by engineer Vyacheslav Shishkov, who later became a famous writer, author of the famous “Gloomy River”. In 1911, a geodetic expedition led by him discovered colossal forest falls near the Tetere River. Leonid Kulik, who went with expeditions to the fallout area three times, began a targeted search for the meteorite. In 1927, he conducted a general reconnaissance, discovered many craters, and a year later returned with a large expedition. During the summer, topographical surveys of the surrounding area, filming of fallen trees were carried out, and an attempt was made to pump water out of the craters with a homemade pump. However, no traces of the meteorite were found.
Kulik's third expedition, which took place in 1929 and 1930, was the largest and equipped with drilling equipment. They opened one of the largest craters, at the bottom of which a stump was discovered. But it turned out to be “older” than the Tunguska disaster. Consequently, the craters were not of meteorite, but of thermokarst origin. The Tunguska cosmic body and its fragments disappeared without a trace. Kulik believed that the Tunguska meteorite was iron. He did not even deign to examine the large meteorite-like stone that was discovered by expedition member Konstantin Yankovsky. Attempts to find the “Yankovsky stone”, made thirty years later, were unsuccessful.
In 1939, Kulik's last expedition took place, and again it did not bring significant results. Kulik was going to organize another trip to the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell in 1941, but the Great Patriotic War prevented it.
In 1958, a group led by geochemist Kirill Florensky went to the Podkamennaya Tunguska region. The expedition examined a vast logging area and compiled a map of it. However, not a single meteorite crater was discovered. One of the main tasks assigned to Florensky’s group was the detection of finely scattered meteorite matter, but the searches did not produce results. But a completely new phenomenon was recorded - an abnormally rapid growth of trees. All these circumstances forced some members of the expedition to come to the conclusion that the meteorite exploded not upon contact with the Earth, but at some height above the surface. Such a conclusion was in clear contradiction with the data of “classical” meteoritics: all previously observed meteorites either burned up in the atmosphere, or split into pieces, falling out in separate pieces, or penetrated into the thickness of the earth’s crust, forming craters.
In the late 1950s, the KSE - Complex Amateur Expedition to Study the Tunguska Meteorite - was formed in the student city of Tomsk. The first CSE trip to the fallout zone took place in 1959. The main goal that the members of the expedition set for themselves was to “awaken the interest of wide circles of the public in one of the world’s mysteries, the solution of which can give a lot to humanity.” A year later, KSE-2 began operation. It was unprecedented in number and consisted of more than seventy people. It is interesting that in parallel with KSE-2, a group of engineers from Sergei Korolev’s design bureau worked in the area of ​​the Tunguska disaster. The future pilot-cosmonaut Georgy Grechko was also looking for a meteorite in its composition. The enthusiasm of the CSE members was constantly supported by the belief that the undertaken “general offensive” would in the very near future make it possible to reveal the nature of the mysterious meteorite, but even after thirty years of research, having collected colossal factual material, the members of the Complex Expedition were unable to unambiguously answer an essentially simple question: What exactly exploded over Podkamennaya Tunguska?
There is no consensus on the question “What was that?” not yet. The absence of traces of the meteorite gave rise to many exotic hypotheses. Initially, the Tunguska cosmic body was considered an ordinary, albeit very large, iron meteorite that fell to the surface of the Earth in the form of one or more fragments. In the post-war years, the “comet” hypothesis gained great popularity. This version still has many supporters. In the 1950s, American astronomer Fred Whipple showed that many of the contradictions associated with explaining the nature of the Tunguska meteorite are eliminated if we consider the comet's nucleus as a monolithic body consisting of ices of methane, ammonia and solid carbon dioxide mixed with snow. In 1961, geochemist Alexey Zolotov, who visited the fallout zone 12 times, put forward a hypothesis about the atomic nature of the Tunguska explosion. Despite the “crazy” component of this hypothesis, Zolotov even managed to defend his Ph.D. thesis based on it. The geochemist wrote: “The flight and explosion of the Tunguska cosmic body is an unusual, and possibly new, natural phenomenon still unknown to man.” The study of the fallout zone from the air made it possible in the late 1960s to say that the Tunguska meteorite made an inexplicable maneuver in the atmosphere during its fall - this supposedly confirms its artificial origin. Skeptics, however, point out that history has recorded numerous cases of the fall of rotating meteorites, arbitrarily changing their trajectory.
After the passage of a very large cosmic body through the air envelope of the Earth was recorded in 1972, a hypothesis arose that the Tunguska meteorite was the same fleeting guest. In 1977, a mathematical model was published describing the fall of the Tunguska meteorite and proving that it could well evaporate under the influence of heating in the atmosphere, but only under the condition that it consisted entirely of snow. It was shown that the main chemical elements of the Tunguska cosmic body were: sodium (up to 50%), zinc (20%), calcium (more than 10%), iron (7.5%) and potassium (5%). It is these elements, with the exception of zinc, that are most often observed in the spectra of comets. The results of the research and the data obtained, according to the authors of the study, allow us “to no longer assume, but to assert: yes, the Tunguska cosmic body was indeed the nucleus of a comet.”

> Tunguska meteorite

The explosion that occurred in 1908 near the Tunguska River became a real mystery and challenge for scientists around the world. The main obstacle to the formation of scientific theories and conducting special experiments was considered to be the absence of remnants of an asteroid or comet in the presence of the consequences of an explosion and traces of the fall of a celestial body. A few years later, researchers found 3 different potential meteorite fragments in sandy sediments in the Khushmo River area. Fragments Tunguska meteorite gave scientists the opportunity to unravel a 100-year-old mystery shrouded in darkness, but despite the fact that the remains of the asteroid were found more than 25 years ago, research on this case was published only now.

Scientists believe that, like the latest events in Chelyabinsk, the fall of the Tunguska meteorite should have caused a powerful explosion and the so-called “meteor shower” from fragments of the main body, but no convincing evidence of this theory has been found. It is known that on July 30, 1908, the fall of a meteorite caused the disappearance of trees over an area of ​​2,000 square kilometers and the death of one person; no other casualties were recorded. Fortunately, this region was sparsely populated and most of its area was occupied by Siberian forests, and not human settlements. According to the first studies, the explosion caused by the fall of the Tunguska meteorite was 1000 times more powerful than the explosion of an average nuclear bomb. It should be noted that Tunguska received 5 points on the Richter scale out of 9.5 (for comparison, the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant caused an earthquake of magnitude 7.1).

Naturally, several expeditions took place in the region of the supposed meteorite fall, most of which were unsuccessful. However, in 1939, mineralogist Leonid Kulik and his subordinates found a sample of molten fossils containing air bubbles, but, unfortunately, the found sample was lost before analysis.

A scientific expedition in 1998, led by Andrei Zlobin, was carried out with the aim of proving the fall of a meteorite and searching for its remains. The scientist made several wells in peat bogs near the Tunguska River and found about 100 rock samples that had signs of potential meteorite fragments. Only 3 fragments out of 100 were allowed for subsequent studies, since they were formed due to interaction with high temperatures and oxygen.

Soon, Andrei Zlobin announced that after the expedition he decided to focus his efforts on the experimental study of thermal processes, mathematical modeling of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite and the impact of this disaster on the environment. The scientist analyzed the rings on a cut of a tree growing in the area of ​​the explosion and came to the conclusion that the rocks found were not subject to heat treatment or modification after the explosion on the ground, and, therefore, they are an unchanged part of the main meteorite. Zlobin also notes that at the moment they have not yet carried out the necessary detailed analyzes of the rock that would reveal the isotopic and chemical composition of the meteorite fragments, although these experiments are planned. However, he calculated the density of the rock under study, which was 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter. The data obtained correspond to the density of the nucleus of Halley's comet and scientists around the world call this “excellent confirmation of the cometary origin of the Tunguska impact.”

It should be noted that there is nothing definite and scientifically proven in Andrei Zlobin’s new study. At the same time, the question arises as to why he waited so long to publish the results of the expedition. Only one thing is known for sure - the work done gives hope that one day, with the development of information technology and the next technical revolution, a more accurate and complete study of the mystery of the Tunguska meteorite will appear.