Currently, the Earth has only one natural satellite - the Moon. But relatively recently - some 6-7 thousand years ago - two moons could be seen above our planet. This is evidenced not only by the myths and legends of many peoples, but also by geological findings
Lumps of pure iron
In the north of Argentina is the area of Campo del Cielo (translated as "heavenly field"). This name is taken from an ancient Indian legend, which tells about the falling of mysterious metal blocks from the sky on this place.
Pieces of iron, according to old Spanish chronicles, were found here as early as the 16th century. The conquistadors used them to make swords and spears. Particularly lucky was a certain Erman de Miraval, who in 1576, in a rather remote area, among the swampy lowlands, came across a huge block of pure iron. The enterprising Spaniard visited her several times and beat off pieces from her for various needs. In 1783, the prefect of one of the provinces, Don Rubin de Celis, organized an expedition to this block and, having discovered it after a long search, estimated its mass at about 15 tons. A detailed description of the object has not survived, and since then no one has seen it, although attempts to find the block have been made more than once.
In 1803, in the vicinity of Campo del Cielo, a meteorite weighing about a ton was discovered. The largest fragment (635 kg) was delivered to Buenos Aires in 1813. It was later acquired by the Englishman Sir Woodbine Darish and donated to the British Museum. This lump of cosmic iron still rests on a pedestal in front of the museum. Part of its surface has been specially polished to show the structure of the metal with the so-called "Widmanstetten figures", which speak of the object's extraterrestrial origin.
Iron fragments weighing from several kilograms to many tons are still found in Campo del Cielo and its surroundings. The largest one weighed 33.4 tons. It was found in 1980 near the town of Gancedo. American meteorite researcher Robert Hug tried to buy it and take it to the United States, but the Argentine authorities opposed this. Today, this meteorite is considered the second largest among all those found on Earth - after the so-called Khoba meteorite, weighing about 60 tons.
An unusually large number of meteorites found in a relatively small area suggests that once a "meteor shower" was poured in this place. Proof of this, in addition to the finds of the iron objects themselves, is the large number of craters in the Campo del Cielo area. The largest of them is the Laguna Negra crater with a diameter of 115 meters and a depth of more than 5 meters.
A huge meteorite exploded in the atmosphere?
In 1961, a professor at Columbia University (USA), the world's largest specialist on meteorites, W. Cassidy, became interested in the finds in Campo del Cielo. The expedition organized by him discovered a large number of small metal meteorites - hexaderites, consisting of almost chemically pure iron (it contains 96%, the rest is nickel, cobalt and phosphorus). A study of other meteorites found at different times in this area gives the same composition. According to the scientist, this proves that they are all fragments of a single celestial body. Cassidy also drew attention to a strange fact: usually when a large meteorite explodes in the atmosphere, its debris falls to the Earth, crumbling into an ellipse with a maximum diameter of about 1600 meters. And on Campo del Cielo the length of this diameter is 17 kilometers!
One of the Campo del Cielo meteorites
The published preliminary findings of Cassidy's research have generated worldwide interest. Hundreds of volunteers joined the scientist, and as a result, new fragments of meteorite iron were discovered even at a considerable distance from Campo del Cielo, right up to the Pacific coast.
Satellite "two"
But it turned out that the territory of the finds is even more extensive. An unexpected light on the story of the Campo del Cielo meteorite was shed by a discovery in Australia. Here back in 1937, 300 kilometers from the town of Hanbury, in an ancient crater 175 meters in diameter and about 8 meters deep, an iron meteorite weighing 82 kilograms and several fragments of lighter weight were found. In 1969, they conducted a study of their composition and found that all these fragments are almost identical to the iron meteorites from Campo del Cielo.
The craters in the Hanbury area have been known since the 1920s. There are several dozen of them, the largest of them reaches 200 meters, but most are relatively small - from 9 to 18 meters. During the excavations carried out here since the 30s, over 800 fragments of meteorite iron were found in the craters, among which are four parts of one piece with a total weight of about 200 kilograms.
The final conclusion that Cassidy came to was this: a huge meteorite fell to Earth, but not suddenly. For some time before its fall, this celestial body revolved around the Earth in an elliptical orbit, gradually approaching the planet.
Being in orbit could take quite a long time - a thousand years or more. However, under the influence of gravity, this second Moon eventually approached the Earth so much that it crossed the so-called Roche border, after which it entered the atmosphere and disintegrated into fragments of different sizes, which fell to the surface of the planet.
Echoes of an ancient catastrophe The
approximate date of the catastrophe was determined by radiocarbon analysis - it turned out about 5800 years ago. Thus, the catastrophe occurred already in the memory of mankind, in the IV millennium BC. e., when civilizations of antiquity began to emerge, leaving behind monuments of writing. In them we find mythologized references to the second natural satellite of the planet and the catastrophe caused by its fall.
For example, Sumer's clay tablets depict the goddess Innana crossing the sky and emitting a frightening glow. An echo of the same events is, apparently, the ancient Greek myth of Phaethon.
The luminous celestial body is mentioned by Babylonian, Egyptian, Old Norse sources, myths of the peoples of Oceania. The English ethnologist J. Fraser notes that out of 130 Indian tribes in Central and South America, there is not a single one whose myths would not reflect this theme.
“There is nothing surprising in all this,” writes the American astronomer M. Papper, “because metal meteorites are very clearly visible in flight.
Reflecting sunlight, they shine much brighter than stone meteorites; as for a large fireball made of pure iron, its luminosity in the night sky should have exceeded the luminosity of the Moon in its brightness.
The elliptical orbit along which the fireball was moving suggested, at certain periods, the passage of this object close to the Earth. At the same time, the car came into contact with the upper layers of the atmosphere and got so hot that its brilliance should have been visible even in daylight. As the object approached our planet, its luminosity increased, causing panic among the population. According to M. Papper, the orbit, which made the fireball either heat up when it touched the earth's atmosphere, then, moving away from it, freeze again in the icy cold of space, and led to its destruction to pieces. Judging by the rather large area in which the debris scattered - from South America to Australia - the bolide split in orbit and entered the Earth's atmosphere in the form of a string of separate fragments.
The bolide could have caused the Flood
The largest pieces, according to experts, fell into the Pacific Ocean, causing waves of unprecedented size that could go around the Earth. In the legends of the Indians of the Amazon basin, it is said that stars fell from the heavens, a terrible roar and roar were heard and everything plunged into darkness, and then a downpour fell on the ground, which flooded the whole world. “The water rose to a great height,” says one of the Brazilian legends, “and the whole earth was submerged in water. The darkness and the downpour did not stop. People fled, not knowing where to hide; climbed the tallest trees and mountains. " The Brazilian legend is echoed by the fifth book of the Mayan code “Chilam Balam”: “The stars fell from heaven, crossed the sky with a fiery train, the earth was covered with ash, rumbled, trembled and cracked, shaken by jolts. The world was crumbling."
All these legends are about a catastrophe, accompanied by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods. Its epicenter was clearly in the Southern Hemisphere, since the character of the myths changes with the distance to the north. Legends tell only about severe flooding. It is this event, apparently, preserved in the memory of the Sumerians and Babylonians and found its most vivid embodiment in the well-known biblical myth of the Flood.
Igor V0L03NEV
Secrets of the XX century №23 2010