Over the past century, many hypotheses have been put forward for the phenomenon of the Tunguska meteorite
The past XX century has left us two biggest unsolved mysteries. It is still unknown WHO actually killed US President Kennedy and WHAT was the Tunguska meteorite … But now we will not talk about the murder of John F. Kennedy. We will talk about the Tunguska meteorite. One hundred and three years ago, on June 30, 1908, all reading and progressive mankind celebrated the birthday of the great science fiction writer Jules Verne, who turned 80 years old … No, not with that I started, although this fact is certainly remarkable.
One hundred and three years ago, in the spring of 1908, alarming conversations began in the esoteric societies of Europe and Russia about an imminent global catastrophe. Many felt the approach of something vague, but definitely creepy. Half-mad preachers predicted the imminent end of the world. Something had to happen, just about … But what exactly? And where? I guess I started with the wrong thing again. The enlightened part of humanity is celebrating, the esoterically-minded part is hysterical … But nature, nature! Starting in March 1908, something strange began to happen in nature. In the sky, unusual glow was observed, glowing hot balls, rainbows in the complete absence of rain, bright colored dawns, numerous halos around the sun, white nights in the south … Scientists were concerned: according to their data,in April, the ozone layer began to rapidly deteriorate over Europe … Something was about to happen … What then?
And this is what happened.
One hundred and three years ago, on June 30, 1908, a thousand kilometers north of Irkutsk, near the village of Vanovara on the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, something happened that has been furiously debated for a century. In the early morning, a large, flaming body appeared in the sky, moving along a strange, intricate trajectory. The light emanating from the body was so bright that it eclipsed the sun for several minutes. Then an explosion of monstrous force followed - the echoes of it reached right up to Central Europe, and the impact was recorded by seismic stations around the world. The blast wave circled the globe twice. In the taiga, in an area of several thousand square kilometers, huge trees were felled like matches. The next night a luminous cloud enveloped our entire planet, strange rays were seen in the atmosphere …
The exploded body was named "Tunguska meteorite", although, strictly speaking, it could not be called a meteorite. After all, numerous expeditions (including the three expeditions of the famous Professor L. A. Kulik, which will be discussed below, the expeditions of 1928, 1935 and 1939) did not find a crater from the fall of a celestial body, not a single one (note - not a single !) of a debris on the ground or in the soil … and after all, the body weight, according to the most approximate estimates, was about a million tons … and such an unusual trajectory of the fall (or rather, flight) … According to the description of local Evenk residents, the body changed shape, it looked like fireball, then onto a flaming log floating through the air. At the moment of the explosion, a pillar of fire pierced the clouds. The fall of any meteorite causes a wave of hot gases, which, in turn, cause an instantaneous burn of the trees; so,no such burns were found. The destruction caused in the taiga could only have been caused by an overground explosion (the fallen trees lay tops from the epicenter of the explosion, and only in the very epicenter were trees standing, dead, terrible, with peeled bark and broken branches - this is in the epicenter, where after the fall "Normal" meteorite should be a funnel or crater!) … but, for goodness sake, when these meteorites exploded in the air, not reaching the ground?when did the meteorites explode in the air before reaching the ground?when did the meteorites explode in the air before reaching the ground?
I repeat, calling the Tunguska meteorite a meteorite is simply stupid. So in relation to this case, it is better to adhere to the name "Tunguska phenomenon" or, as they sometimes say, "Tunguska miracle". Inevitably, an absolutely anti-scientific thought comes to mind that this phenomenon was organized by the Universe for the eightieth birthday of Jules Verne … so to speak, a festive fireworks display for the anniversary of the great science fiction writer … but this is me, not seriously, of course …
Over the past century, scientists have put forward many hypotheses to explain this phenomenon - smart, not very smart, and even downright stupid. Of course, the very first "version" was put forward by the Tungus tribes who lived in the area of the catastrophe. “In one of the camps, the largest chum unexpectedly flew into the air,” said the Tungus, who are also Evenks. - The owner of the plague hit a tree, lost consciousness. And when he woke up, he told this. From all sides "fires", shapeless monsters, attacked him. A "chir" flew in - a tornado that fell down the forest. And "agdy", iron birds with fiery eyes, flew down from the sky and, spewing out flame from their mouths, set fire to the taiga. And finally, the formidable god Aghdy himself descended to earth, burning everything around with "invisible fire"; he took the largest herd of deer and flew back to his heaven. "The shamans immediately declared the site of the disaster sacred and forbade them to cross the border of this zone on pain of severe punishment.
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The next version was put forward by the authors of the Russian magazine "World Pathfinder", popular at the beginning of the twentieth century (Journal of travel, adventure, fantasy and hunting, that was its full name). In the opinion of these authors, a gigantic projectile launched from the Moon fell on the Earth in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area - neither more nor less! And it was a failed attempt by the Selenites - intelligent lunar inhabitants - to conquer the Earth! Well, whatever you want, after all, Jules Verne's 80th birthday … Although not to the Moon from a cannon - on the contrary, from the Moon … The imagination of the writers had not yet matured to the "flying plates" …
Then came more or less scientific hypotheses.
It was a giant ball of lightning, some scientists said. No, it was an antimatter meteorite, others objected, so no debris was found. The earth collided with the comet's icy core, others argued, that is why no debris was found. There was no meteorite, no comet, no lightning at all, the fourth, fifth, sixth declared, and there was a colossal release of underground gases … a volcanic eruption … a catastrophically unsuccessful experiment with the electromagnetic fields of the great physicist Tesla … American astrophysicists Jackson and Rhine suggested that the Earth was morning collided with a small "black hole".
Of course, science fiction writers also offered their versions, how could it be without it. In 1946, the famous scientist and science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev openly stated that a Martian nuclear-powered spacecraft had exploded over the taiga. Why atomic? Yes, some of the circumstances of the Tunguska phenomenon are painfully reminiscent of the damaging factors of an overground nuclear explosion … And what have the Martians got to do with it? The Tunguska catastrophe occurred at the moment of the closest approach of Mars, Venus and the Earth, and, according to Kazantsev, it was during this period that the Martians were most convenient to organize expeditions to two neighboring planets … (by the way, the great Stanislav Lem used this circumstance in one of his earliest things, the novel "Astronauts"; Venusians (according to Lem) conducted an unsuccessful reconnaissance, and their ultimate goal was the enslavement of the Earth; however,their insidious plans were not destined to come true, for the warlike inhabitants of Venus destroyed each other in a global nuclear war; a bit like the World Pathfinder hypothesis, don't you? But instead of the Lunans, there are Venusians). It was easy to believe in a Martian ship with an atomic engine - after all, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had just happened, humanity experienced a colossal shock … In addition, radioactivity in the area of the Tunguska catastrophe was evident - many Evenki who violated the shaman's ban and entered the catastrophe zone suffered from radiation sickness (remember, shamans mentioned "the invisible fire of the god Aghda" - isn't it gamma radiation?). The well-known science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky suggested that the Tunguska phenomenon is associated with a spaceship of intelligent counter-creatures, that is, living in the reverse flow of time;that is why, after the explosion in the taiga, nothing was found, they had to search before (an interesting hypothesis, by the way! By the way, the great magician Merlin, known to us from the legends about the British medieval king Arthur (and from Hollywood films), is also said to be he lived like this, backwards, from the future to the past; however, if you believe the legends, Merlin was generally born into the world from a nun who was seduced by an incubus, that is, a dissolute male demon … Do you think the hypothesis of counterpoints is too delusional? But after all, half of the substance in the Universe moves in the opposite direction in time. American physicist Richard F. Feynman back in 1949 suggested (in his article in the Physicl Review) that a positron is an electron moving in the opposite (from our point of view) direction in time, and that in antiworlds (galaxies,consisting of antimatter) and time flows in the opposite (again from our point of view) direction … Well, okay. Aliens are so aliens; many of us would like to think well of them; it is possible that the aliens deliberately took their burning ship away from the densely populated areas of the continent in order to avoid destruction and numerous human casualties. After all, this is what the pilots did and are doing, often sacrificing themselves for the sake of saving many, many people.often sacrificing themselves to save many, many people.often sacrificing themselves to save many, many people.
The hypothesis of an alien spacecraft is also supported by the fact that in 1908, on the night of June 30 (that is, on the eve of the catastrophe), a French astronomer "discovered" a new planet that never appeared in sight …
(Just like that, by the way … In 1957, astronomers observed the comet Arenda-Roland (so named after the discoverers). This strange comet, along with the usual tail directed - like all comets - to the Sun, had a second tail, narrow, like a ray directed away from the Sun … None of the comets observed by mankind in the entire history of its existence had such a tail, it appeared suddenly and just as suddenly disappeared. In addition, the comet emitted radio waves, which shocked all astronomers! The emissions were stable - as if two radio transmitters were working … Some scientists suggested that Arenda-Roland is not a comet at all, but an interstellar probe of an extraterrestrial civilization launched to study our solar system. decrypted so far. Then the comet (or not the comet?) Passed us and departed, disappearing from the field of view of telescopes. I could also talk about the so-called "black satellite" - a very mysterious celestial body, obviously of artificial origin, which was observed (only one night!) By the astronomers of the Athens and Simeiz observatories in the mid-50s of the last century - but this is a separate story. However, all this is me, by the way …)
Finally, there was an assumption that the catastrophe was caused by a laser beam sent to Earth from another planet (by the way, the authors of this hypothesis were the Baku (!) Science fiction writers Valentina Zhuravleva and Genrikh Altov). Our fellow countrymen believed that there is a highly developed civilization on one of the planets in the constellation Cygnus. In 1883, the Krakatoa volcano erupted in the Pacific Ocean, so powerful that it was noticed from another planet and mistaken for a signal - an attempt to communicate. As a response signal, a laser beam was chosen, Zhuravleva and Altov assured. Again, the authors of the hypothesis drew attention to the high humanity of intelligent beings from the constellation Cygnus - the beam was sent to a sparsely populated region of Asia, which avoided numerous victims.
Someone else suggested that the catastrophe occurred as a result of an unsuccessful experiment by scientists of the distant future - they, they say, tried to throw a harmless experimental kitten into the past, but it turned out that … In general, there are many versions, for any, even the most perverted taste. But what happened in the sky over the village of Vanovara on June 30, 1908, in fact, no one can say.
There are, however, facts that do not yet fit into any of the hypotheses listed. Well, for example: why in the epicenter of the explosion all trees develop twelve times faster than usual? Why do pines growing along the flight path of the Tunguska diva change their hereditary forms more often than other pines? Why did the magnetic properties of the soil change over an area of more than 3,000 square kilometers after that long-standing explosion? Increased radioactive background of the area, violation of the physical properties of rocks, microelements of cosmic origin in the soil - why, why, why?..
I would like to mentally take off my hat in front of Professor Leonid Alekseevich Kulik. After all, it was he who went to the place of the disaster three times, into the hard-to-reach thicket, fearless, as a true scientist should be. It was he who went where the Evenki guides flatly refused to go, in fear of the god of Agdy. It was he who was shocked by the sight of the crippled taiga. It was he and his enthusiastic assistants who scrupulously searched, dug, drilled permafrost, sifted the soil, measured the magnetic field, drained the swamp, looking for at least some fragments. He was one of those "wise men" who, according to the most famous and beloved by many of us playwright Yevgeny Schwartz, "ascend into heaven and descend into hell out of love for the truth."But he never managed to find the truth - Professor Kulik volunteered for the Great Patriotic War (despite his advanced age and the protests of the USSR Academy of Sciences), was captured and died in a Nazi extermination camp. However, if this can serve as at least some consolation, no one at all was able to find the truth.
Still. Although after Professor Kulik at the site of the Tunguska catastrophe, several expeditions operated, equipped with more modern, more advanced equipment, but … "The cart is still there."
There was also an expedition led by the Soviet scientist K. P. Florensky (1958), which precisely established that the explosion occurred in the air. True, a difficult question arose: why did the body explode in the air, without hitting the Earth? Florensky's expedition also established the fact that the trees that survived the explosion developed ten times faster than usual - there was some kind of growth stimulant. Another Soviet scientist, V. Zolotov, came to the indisputable conclusion: the explosion of the Tunguska body occurred due to its internal energy, possibly nuclear. These were no longer hypotheses - they were facts. These facts include the fact that in 1976, on the Vaksha River (Komi ASSR), workers found a fragment of a strange ring-shaped structure with a diameter of just over a meter and weighing one and a half kilograms. Laboratory analysis showed that the debris is composed of rare earth elements,which are not found in pure form on Earth - lanthanum, cerium, neodymium. Traces of uranium were also found in this ring without radioactive decay products and minor thorium decay products - in other words, the fragment was "fresh." According to the unanimous opinion of scientists, at that time (even in the 70s of the last century, not to mention the very beginning), it was almost impossible to obtain such an alloy - it required colossal pressures or no less colossal magnetic fields. Nevertheless, a fragment of this alloy existed and even for some time lay on the table of the editor of the Soviet magazine Inventor and Rationalizer … The fragment was found on the continuation of the flight line of the Tunguska body before the explosion (the fragment was thrown a thousand kilometers ahead), and this was additional an argument in favor of those who saw an alien ship in the Tunguska phenomenon. Highly humane, however, were aliens - apparently, having suffered an accident, they took their ship away from settlements, to a deserted place - this is what our earthly pilots often did … Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, General Director, also did his best to solve the Tunguska phenomenon. the designer of the Soviet rocket and space technology - on his initiative expeditions were sent to the taiga several times by helicopters, but they did not find anything significant. I cannot penetrate into the train of Korolyov's thoughts, but perhaps he really hoped to find traces of the crashed Martian ship - after all, everyone knows that the general designer was eager to go to Mars with all his heart …earthly pilots … Sergey Pavlovich Korolev, the general designer of Soviet rocket and space technology, also made efforts to unravel the Tunguska phenomenon. On his initiative, helicopter expeditions were sent to the taiga several times, but they did not find anything significant. I cannot penetrate into the train of Korolyov's thoughts, but perhaps he really hoped to find traces of the crashed Martian ship - after all, everyone knows that the general designer was eager to go to Mars with all his heart …earthly pilots … Sergey Pavlovich Korolev, the general designer of Soviet rocket and space technology, also made efforts to unravel the Tunguska phenomenon. On his initiative, helicopter expeditions were sent to the taiga several times, but they did not find anything significant. I cannot penetrate into the train of Korolyov's thoughts, but perhaps he really hoped to find traces of the crashed Martian ship - after all, everyone knows that the general designer was eager to go to Mars with all his heart …he really hoped to find traces of the crashed Martian ship - after all, everyone knows that the general designer was eager to go to Mars with all his heart …he really hoped to find traces of the crashed Martian ship - after all, everyone knows that the general designer was eager to go to Mars with all his heart …
On June 30, 1978, another group of young scientists and students who worked on the Podkamennaya Tunguska decided to celebrate a kind of anniversary: 70 years since the birth of the mystery and 50 years since the first attempt to solve it. Physicists and chemists, biologists and astronomers, botanists and genetics arranged a kind of "skits". Someone, smeared with soot from head to toe, portrayed a "black hole", someone carefully carried an empty bottle, on the label of which was written "antimatter", two dressed in white robes, depicted countermotes, waving huge frying pans … And at the end a huge pile of brushwood was set on fire - this is how they staged the symbolic start of the countermote starship … As you can see, they respected all hypotheses at once, albeit in a somewhat joking manner. Youth are youth. But did anyone have a similar holiday last year,when Mystery turned exactly one hundred years old, and attempts to solve it - round 50? I do not know. Rather, I have no such information..
What do I personally think about this? Well, if you're wondering … Personally, I think that it was still a failed experiment by Nikola Tesla. This, I repeat, a man of genius in many respects, a great engineer and inventor, could really a lot, and much of what he could, could seriously shock humanity. It was not for nothing that he destroyed a large number of his projects and developments … So, Tesla: I think so because this version seems to me the most logical and plausible of all; Yes, I firmly believe in the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, and I admit that they have visited (and are visiting) our Earth … and it is possible that some of their ships could explode over the Siberian taiga … what, wrong? But the famous medieval philosopher Ockam taught us - do not multiply entities beyond what is necessary, and if something can be explained by the deed of human hands,then you shouldn't drag space aliens or anything like that here. The principle of economy of thought, do you understand? This is my opinion
The fact of a large meteorite falling to Earth has not been preserved in the memory of mankind - the largest of them, which struck the American continent and gave birth to the Gulf of Mexico, occurred long before the appearance of man (it is believed that it was this meteorite that ultimately led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, although I personally have never held this hypothesis). Other large meteorites (a 60 tonne that fell in Namibia in 1920, or a 15 tonne that fell in Greenland in 1963, a huge meteorite that fell in the Gobi Desert a thousand years ago, or a tonne meteorite that just recently fell in Norway) were, of course, a grandiose phenomenon, but by no means apocalyptic. But, which is characteristic, these were just meteorites, and they behaved, so to speak, "in a meteoric manner." The Tunguska wonder is not a meteorite.
We, today's survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl and Fukushima, the explosion of the Challenger shuttle and the flooding of the Mir orbital station … it is difficult for us to understand the horror that gripped the people of the planet more than a hundred years ago. Since then, we have experienced a lot and are used to everything. But here's what worries. It's one thing if a huge celestial stone falls on our heads - this is, whatever one may say, the providence of God, and all that remains is to fold our legs and go to another world, or, if technology and circumstances permit, to ward off the misfortune that came from space from the Earth. An accident over our planet of an alien spacecraft - well, here, practically nothing depends on you and me either, you never know they roam about in Space, alien spaceships, naturally, that one of them no, no, and will fly to Earth, and could explode here. Elements of God's providence are also visible in this, although, of course, we are able to fight uninvited and aggressive aliens - due to the capabilities of our military equipment. But it is quite another matter if a person creates a catastrophe of this magnitude by his own efforts. When yesterday's monkey begins to move the elements of nature to satisfy his own curiosity or (more likely) to invent a new weapon, there is no good waiting. As the great Polish satirist Stanislav Jerzy Lec once said, “everything is in the hands of a person, so they need to be washed more often” …When yesterday's monkey begins to move the elements of nature to satisfy his own curiosity or (more likely) to invent a new weapon, there is no good waiting. As the great Polish satirist Stanislav Jerzy Lec once said, “everything is in the hands of a person, so they need to be washed more often” …When yesterday's monkey begins to move the elements of nature to satisfy his own curiosity or (more likely) to invent a new weapon, there is no good waiting. As the great Polish satirist Stanislav Jerzy Lec once said, “everything is in the hands of a person, so they need to be washed more often” …