He did not fall to the ground - the results of years of research have been published.
7 am, Evenkia. The sky over the Yenisei suddenly flared up with a giant fireball. An explosion rang out - an impact with a power of 50 megatons knocked down a forest over 2,000 square kilometers, sound waves circled the Earth several times, and the glow in the sky continued for two more days … June 30 is another anniversary of one of the most mysterious space accidents in human history - the fall of the Tunguska meteorite from 1908 in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area. Thousands of scientific papers, hundreds of expeditions, but there are still no traces of a cosmic body, not a final version of what it was. However, research is ongoing. The results of many years of work the day before in the leading British scientific publication Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society were published by scientists of the Federal Research Center "Krasnoyarsk Scientific Center of the SB RAS" with the participation of young colleagues from several Russian academic institutes and universities. The meteorite did not fall to the ground, they assure. The theory is not new, but convincing evidence has now been collected. What kind? "KP" was told about this by the project manager Sergey Karpov, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Leading Researcher at the Institute of Physics of the SB RAS, Professor of the Institute of Engineering Physics and Radioelectronics of the Siberian Federal University. What kind? "KP" was told about this by the project manager Sergey Karpov, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Physics of the SB RAS, Professor of the Institute of Engineering Physics and Radioelectronics of the Siberian Federal University. What kind? "KP" was told about this by the project manager Sergey Karpov, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Physics of the SB RAS, Professor of the Institute of Engineering Physics and Radioelectronics of the Siberian Federal University.
From left to right: Sergei Karpov, co-author of articles on the Tunguska phenomenon Daniil Khrennikov (second-year physics student at Siberian Federal University), astronomer student at Moscow State University Andrei Pozdnyakov, co-author of articles Andrei Titov (second-year student at MIPT).
Version 1: not ice, but iron
- For you to understand, this is the result of painstaking work: the hypothesis was born back in 1995, shortly before the 90th anniversary of the Tunguska phenomenon. The most active work fell on the last 4 years, when subtle computer technologies appeared, it became possible to attract specialists in the field of numerical methods. To begin with, we had to formulate the very idea of a through flight through the atmosphere, then prove it. Basically, we modeled the event that happened on June 30, 1908.
Swamps over which the car exploded. Photo: EVGENY SAZONOV / kp.ru
The popular theory that a meteorite is a compressed lady and a stone (allegedly, therefore, no traces can be found) is incorrect, scientists say.
Promotional video:
- We calculated the aerodynamic pressure on the body - if it were made of ice, it would simply fall apart when moving in the atmosphere and would not cause such consequences, - says Karpov. “The body would have evaporated after flying about 300 kilometers in the atmosphere. And according to our calculations, the flight trajectory from the point of entry into the atmosphere to the point of exit was 3,000 kilometers, of which about 700 kilometers under conditions of intense glow. If the body would evaporate during the fall, the power of the shock wave when approaching the epicenter should have decreased to zero and would not have produced the effect that we have. And we have fallen trees, earthquakes, magnetic storms and forest fires. Not to mention the windows and roofs in villages affected within a radius of hundreds of kilometers.
Most likely, the cosmic body consisted of iron. Such, by the way, make up only 5% of those meteoroids that are now flying in near space. The Arizona meteorite consisted of iron, it flew to Earth 50,000 years ago and left a crater 1200 meters in diameter and 200 meters deep at the site of the fall, and scattered a huge amount of fragments around the area. But the Tunguska meteorite did not leave behind either a crater or fragments. What's wrong here?
Lake Cheko was also mistaken for the crater of the Tunguska meteorite. Photo: EVGENY SAZONOV / kp.ru
Half evaporated into the earth's atmosphere
This is the essence of the hypothesis that there was no fall as such. The space visitor simply flashed the Earth's atmosphere and dashed away. And on the way he did trouble.
- The meteorite supposedly entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 20 km / s, and left - 17-18 km / s. The distance from the point of entry to the point of exit is 3,000 kilometers. The point of closest approach to the surface was just in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area. In the so-called epicenter, the height to the Earth's surface was 10-15 kilometers, which was more than enough for a powerful shock wave that knocked down trees and caused a magnetic storm that raged around the epicenter for several hours. Based on the speed and distance, if the trajectory at the micro-distance was different, in 0.5 seconds the Earth would take a hit, and the catastrophe would be truly cosmic.
Iron, as we know, tends to melt at temperatures from 1000 degrees and, as it rises further, it begins to evaporate. Imagine that the temperature on the surface of an asteroid is over 10,000 degrees, and the evaporation rate over the epicenter reaches 500,000 tons per second. Suppose the initial mass upon entering the atmosphere was 3 million tons, then the asteroid moves in the atmosphere and at the altitude of closest approach the maximum evaporation rate is achieved. In this case, along the entire length of the trajectory, the asteroid loses about half of its initial mass.
Perhaps the evaporated iron is the same luminous cloud that the British saw in themselves for two days, and then described it as "a night similar to day." Remember that the asteroid flew by at 7 am local time, and in England it was midnight at that time. The time of flight through the atmosphere did not exceed 180 seconds.
A cloud of vaporized iron was subsequently carried thousands of kilometers away. The smallest particles, interacting with air, turned into oxides - a common rust, which is apparently invisible on Earth. And over time, these oxides, no different from ordinary terrestrial materials, settled on almost half of the planet, go now, find where.
The nature of fires and blast waves
Another mystery of the Tunguska phenomenon is the fires that covered an area of more than 160 square kilometers. How could the taiga catch fire if there was no fall? Eyewitnesses noticed the asteroid when it had already warmed up to temperatures above 10,000 degrees. At this moment, the heat radiation was most intense. It is under such conditions that the ignition temperature of combustible materials is reached on the Earth's surface, which heat up when absorbing optical radiation from a giant fireball during the estimated time of its flight over the epicenter for 1 - 1.5 seconds.
The giant trees were uprooted after the explosion.
As for the shock wave, calculations have shown that its occurrence is associated with a sharp increase in the rate of evaporation of the body when approaching the epicenter in the upper layers of the troposphere. Up to 500 thousand tons evaporated in one second. It was this huge mass in the form of high-temperature plasma that instantly expanded and created an explosion effect.
There will be no expedition
It would be logical to ask the team of Krasnoyarsk scientists: if they have already calculated their version of the Tunguska phenomenon, maybe now summer is on its way there, to the reserve. To which Sergey Karpov replies:
- Send the expedition there again? What for? Tens of thousands of people have already been there. They searched from the ground, from space, from helicopters. Radar sounding was carried out. They dug and dug everything up, there was no living place left. And we have confirmed our theory by calculations.
Now Krasnoyarsk people are waiting for the reaction of the scientific community, including opponents who adhere to different versions of the event and furiously defend their own versions.
HOWEVER
When to expect a new alien from space? And will he kill our planet? In some countries, in the United States, for example, a network has been deployed for tracking near-space objects whose trajectories intersect with the earth's orbit. The most dangerous now is the asteroid Apophis with a diameter of 400 meters. Its closest approach to Earth is expected in 2029. And as soon as it comes up, they will make calculations to clarify where it will be in 2036.
- Earlier, it was in 2036 that it was predicted that it would collide with the Earth. But the fact is that the orbit of Apophis is evolving, it is influenced by the gravity of the major planets - Jupiter, Saturn. Still, the size of 400 meters is not a global problem. An asteroid 2 kilometers in size can become a death for humanity. With such, thank God, our Mother Earth does not intersect …
ELENA SEREBROVSKAYA