111 years ago, on June 30, 1908, in the taiga, Eastern Siberia, over the valley of the Yenisei tributary, the Podkamennaya Tunguska, a meteorite exploded, which was later named Tunguska.
Three days before the event, which occupies the minds of researchers and scientists to this day, June 14 (June 27, new style), 1908, in the territory from the Atlantic to Siberia, unusual atmospheric phenomena began to be observed: noctilucent clouds, bright twilight, solar halos and intense glow sky. On the morning of June 17 (June 30), 1908, a body of fire flew over central Siberia, moving in a northern direction; its flight was observed in many settlements in that area, thunderous sounds were heard. The body shape is described as round, spherical, or cylindrical; color - like red, yellow or white; Around the place of the fall, the forest was fanned from the center, and in the very center of the fall, part of the trees remained standing on the vine, devoid of branches and bark.
One of the most famous eyewitness accounts is the report of Semyon Semyonov, a resident of the Vanavara trading station, located 70 km southeast of the epicenter of the explosion:
… 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 rip and throw off my shirt, but the sky slammed shut and there was a strong blow. I was thrown off the porch by three fathoms. After the blow came such a knock, as if stones were falling from the sky or guns were firing, the earth trembled, and when I was lying on the ground, I pressed my head, fearing that the stones would not break my head. At that moment, when the sky opened, a hot wind swept from the north, like from a cannon, which left traces on the ground in the form of tracks. Then it turned out that many of the glass in the windows were broken, and the iron tab for the door lock was broken at the barn."
Even closer to the epicenter, 30 km from it to the southeast, on the banks of the Avarkitta River, there was a chum of the Evenk brothers Chuchanchi and Chekaren Shanyagir. Here's how they describe what happened:
“Our chum then stood on the bank of Avarkitta. Before sunrise, Chekaren and I came from the Dilyushma river, where we were visiting with Ivan and Akulina. We fell asleep soundly. Suddenly, both woke up at once - someone was pushing us. We heard a whistle and felt a strong wind. Chekaren still shouted to me: "Do you hear how many gogols fly or mergansers?" We were still in the tent and we could not see what was going on in the forest. Suddenly, someone pushed me again, so hard that I hit my head on the plague pole and then fell onto the hot coals in the hearth. I was scared. Chekaren was also frightened, grabbed the pole. We started shouting father, mother, brother, but no one answered. Behind the plague there was some kind of noise, you could hear the woods falling. Chekaren and I got out of the bags and were already about to jump out of the chum, but suddenly thunder struck very hard. This was the first blow. The earth began to twitch and swaya strong wind hit our chum and knocked it down. I was crushed by the poles, but my head was not covered, because the ellune was lifted up. Then I saw a terrible miracle: the forests are falling, the needles are burning on them, the dry forest on the ground is burning, the deer moss is burning. Smoke is all around, eyes hurt, hot, very hot, you can burn out. … Suddenly, over the mountain, where the forest has already fallen, it became very light, and, as if to tell you, as if the second sun had appeared, the Russians would say: "suddenly it flashed suddenly" my eyes hurt and I even closed them. It looked like what the Russians call "lightning." And immediately there was agdyllian, 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!”forests fall, needles are burning on them, dry forests on the ground are burning, deer moss is burning. Smoke is all around, eyes hurt, hot, very hot, you can burn out. … Suddenly, over the mountain, where the forest has already fallen, it became very light, and, how can I tell you, as if the second sun had appeared, the Russians would say: “suddenly it flashed suddenly”, my eyes hurt and I even closed them. It looked like what the Russians call "lightning." And immediately there was agdyllian, 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!”forests fall, needles are burning on them, dry forests on the ground are burning, deer moss is burning. Smoke is all around, eyes hurt, hot, very hot, you can burn out. … Suddenly over the mountain, where the forest has already fallen, it became very light, and, how can I tell you, as if the second sun had appeared, the Russians would say: “suddenly it flashed suddenly”, my eyes hurt and I even closed them. It looked like what the Russians call "lightning." And immediately there was agdyllian, 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!”my eyes hurt and I even closed them. It looked like what the Russians call "lightning." And immediately there was agdyllian, 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!”my eyes hurt and I even closed them. It looked like what the Russians call "lightning." And immediately there was agdyllian, 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!”
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The first message about the event that took place near Tunguska was published in the newspaper "Siberian Life" on June 30, 1908. The following message appeared in the newspaper "Siberia" on July 2, 1908:
On the morning of June 17, at the beginning of 9 o'clock, we observed some unusual phenomenon of nature. In the village of N.-Karelinsky (200 versts from Kirensk to the north), the peasants saw in the north-west, rather high above the horizon, some extremely strong (it was impossible to look) body glowing with white, bluish light, moving for 10 minutes from top to bottom … The body was presented in the form of a "pipe", that is, cylindrical. The sky was cloudless, only not high above the horizon, in the same side in which the luminous body was observed, there was a noticeable small dark cloud. It was hot and dry. Approaching the ground (forest), the shiny body seemed to dissipate, but in its place a huge club of black smoke was formed and an extremely strong knock (not thunder) was heard, as if from large falling stones or cannon fire. All buildings were shaking. At the same time, a flame of indefinite shape began to burst out of the cloud. All the inhabitants of the village fled into the streets in panic fear, the women cried, everyone thought that the end of the world was coming.
In those years, no one showed interest in the fall of an extraterrestrial body. Scientific research of the Tunguska phenomenon began only in the 1920s, but the absence of a crater and debris gave rise to more and more new hypotheses and versions of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite.
My research in the field of quantum mechanics and physics is in good agreement with the hypothesis of American scientists Cowan and Libby. In 1965, they argued that the Tunguska meteorite consisted of antimatter and annihilation occurred in contact with the matter of the earth's atmosphere, that is, matter and antimatter, combining together, turned into energy without leaving any fragments. Also, according to my studies of the materials of the Tunguska phenomenon, the place of the crater, presumably, can be considered the “Southern Swamp”, which is indicated by the roots of fallen trees. It was from there that the blast wave could spread. It is possible that the crater formed after the explosion was relatively small and soon, probably even in the first summer, was flooded with water. In subsequent years, it was covered with silt, covered with a layer of moss, filled with peat bumps and overgrown with bushes.
According to NASA experts, expressed in June 2009, the Tunguska meteorite consisted of ice, and its passage through the dense layers of the atmosphere led to the release of water molecules and ice microparticles, which formed noctilucent clouds in the upper atmosphere - a rare atmospheric phenomenon that was observed a day after fall to the Earth of the Tunguska meteorite over Britain by British meteorologists. The same opinion is shared by Russian researchers of airspace from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The hypothesis of the icy nature of the meteorite was expressed long ago and was quite reliably confirmed by numerical calculations by D. V. Rudenko and S. V. Utyuzhnikov in 1999. It was also shown there that the meteorite matter (it could not consist of pure ice) did not reach the Earth's surface and was distributed in the atmosphere. The same authors explained the presence of two successive shock waves that were heard by eyewitnesses.
Until now, none of the hypotheses explaining all the essential features of the phenomenon has become generally accepted. At the same time, the proposed explanations are very numerous and varied. Back in 1970, I. Zotkin, an employee of the Committee on Meteorites of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, published in the journal "Nature" an article "A Guide to Help Compilers of Hypotheses Related to the Fall of the Tunguska Meteorite", where he described seventy-seven hypotheses about its fall, known as of January 1, 1969.
Of no small importance are the records of S. WEINSHTEIN, Doctor of Historical Sciences, laureate of the N. N. Miklukho-Maclay Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences about the Tunguska phenomenon:
“Among the people with whom I had a chance to talk in Siberia in 1948, there were eyewitnesses of the June events of 1908. Chum salmon, who live by hunting and fishing, are very closely connected with nature and carefully observe what is happening around. This is what Ilya Tyganov, who was about twenty years old at the time of the space strike, told me. He recalled that three days before June 17, the sky at night was unusually bright as day. When I asked if it was the northern lights, he replied that with the northern lights only part of the sky was illuminated, and then the whole sky was light. His brother, the shaman, had been kamala the night before to ward off trouble, and said that the evil spirits of the underworld were supposedly to blame:
Returning from the expedition, I introduced several scientists dealing with the problems of the Tunguska meteorite with the testimonies of eyewitnesses of the Tunguska phenomenon that I recorded. The testimonies were not believed, since they contradicted the then generally accepted hypothesis of a collision of the Earth with a meteorite. Recently, however, new hypotheses have appeared trying to explain the cause of the Tunguska catastrophe. The author of one of them, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Yu. A. Nikolaev, believes that on Podkamennaya Tunguska a hundred years ago there was an explosion of a cloud of natural gas that escaped from the bowels of the Earth, set on fire by a small cosmic body. This hypothesis does not contradict the evidence of the Kets."
Among fans of "Star Wars" and science fiction there is a version about the participation of Nikola Tesla in the events of the Tunguska phenomenon. This great scientist-physicist, originally from Serbia, actively studied electricity, trying to find a way to harness this energy for the benefit of humanity. Over the years of his explosive inventive activity, he received more than 300 patents, developed the AC motors that pushed the industrial revolution, and did not live to see his contribution to the discovery of radio. Demonstrated by him in 1983, wireless communications formed the basis of not only radio and television, but also more modern data transmission technologies - WiFi and Bluetooth. Nikola Tesla laid the foundation for the theoretical possibilities of transmitting electric current through the air - a problem that physicists are just beginning to solve today. Until the end of his life, Tesla recalled how he first got acquainted with electricity. At the age of six, his main friend was a black cat, with whom they confronted the yard goose. Once Nikola was playing with a cat in the evening twilight. The boy stroked the animal on the back, when "the cat's back was enveloped in a light blue glow," and from the touch a whole sheaf of sparks appeared. The fact that this is electricity living in frightening lightning struck Tesla to the core. Tesla argued that having climbed several kilometers upward, it is possible to transmit electrical energy over long distances using the earth's atmosphere and the power of lightning. The scientist conducted his experiments and experiments on the transmission of electrical energy over long distances precisely at the time when the Tunguska catastrophe happened. At the age of six, his main friend was a black cat, with whom they confronted the yard goose. Once Nikola was playing with a cat in the evening twilight. The boy stroked the animal on the back, when "the cat's back was enveloped in a light blue glow," and from the touch a whole sheaf of sparks appeared. The fact that this is electricity living in frightening lightning struck Tesla to the core. Tesla argued that having climbed several kilometers upward, it is possible to transmit electrical energy over long distances using the earth's atmosphere and the power of lightning. The scientist conducted his experiments and experiments on the transmission of electrical energy over long distances precisely at the time when the Tunguska catastrophe happened. At the age of six, his main friend was a black cat, with whom they confronted the yard goose. Once Nikola was playing with a cat in the evening twilight. The boy stroked the animal on the back, when "the cat's back was enveloped in a light blue glow," and from the touch a whole sheaf of sparks appeared. The fact that this is electricity living in frightening lightning struck Tesla to the core. Tesla argued that having climbed several kilometers upward, it is possible to transmit electrical energy over long distances using the earth's atmosphere and the power of lightning. The scientist conducted his experiments and experiments on the transmission of electrical energy over long distances precisely at the time when the Tunguska catastrophe happened. The boy stroked the animal on the back, when "the cat's back was enveloped in a light blue glow," and from the touch a whole sheaf of sparks appeared. The fact that this is electricity living in frightening lightning struck Tesla to the core. Tesla argued that having climbed several kilometers upward, it is possible to transmit electrical energy over long distances using the earth's atmosphere and the power of lightning. The scientist conducted his experiments and experiments on the transmission of electrical energy over long distances precisely at the time when the Tunguska catastrophe happened. The boy stroked the animal on the back, when "the cat's back was enveloped in a light blue glow," and from the touch a whole sheaf of sparks appeared. The fact that this is electricity living in frightening lightning struck Tesla to the core. Tesla argued that having climbed several kilometers upward, it is possible to transmit electrical energy over long distances using the earth's atmosphere and the power of lightning. The scientist conducted his experiments and experiments on the transmission of electrical energy over long distances precisely at the time when the Tunguska catastrophe happened.it is possible to transmit electrical energy over long distances using the earth's atmosphere and the power of lightning. The scientist conducted his experiments and experiments on the transmission of electrical energy over long distances precisely at the time when the Tunguska catastrophe happened.it is possible to transmit electrical energy over long distances using the earth's atmosphere and the power of lightning. The scientist conducted his experiments and experiments on the transmission of electrical energy over long distances precisely at the time when the Tunguska catastrophe happened.
Most likely, the technical capabilities and excitement of human genius will eventually reveal the secret of the catastrophe that happened 111 years ago.
* Tunguska meteorite or Tunguska meteoroid (Tunguska phenomenon; abbreviation TKT is also used - Tunguska space body) - a hypothetical body, presumably of cometary origin, or part of a collapsed space body, which probably caused an air explosion that occurred in Russia, in the region of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River (approximately 60 km north and 20 km west of the village of Vanavara) June 17 (30), 1908 at 7 hours 14.5 ± 0.8 minutes local time (0 hours 14.5 minutes GMT). The power of the explosion is estimated at 40-50 megatons, which corresponds to the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb exploded. According to other estimates, the power of the explosion corresponds to 10-15 megatons. The coordinates of the epicenter of the explosion: 60 ° 54 "07 's. sh., 101 ° 55 "40'E. [source Wikipedia].
Author compiled by: Ilona Joanna Reeves