The International Expedition to Research Meteorite Disasters of the Historical Past is a joint Russian-American mission led by a world-renowned scientist, Dallas Abbott.
It was her who discovered several craters on the planet and the hypothesis about the influence of meteorites on the evolution of the Earth. This time, scientists intend to understand the origin of two Russian reservoirs.
The most mysterious and mysterious lake in the Moscow region, not far from Shatura. Mortal. Even the name is scary. They say that once there was a church that went under the water together with the priest. True or fiction is unknown, but the landscape around adds mysticism.
“This is the most suspicious of the 30-40 lakes in the Shatura region, because the rest of them more or less understand how they could have formed,” said Vyacheslav Gusyakov, head of the laboratory of the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics of the SB RAS.
Lovers of extraterrestrial stories were attracted by the round shape. Their version: a lake of meteorite origin, formed ten thousand years ago, from the fall of a 20-meter space body.
The joint Russian-American expedition should this time dot the I in the origin of the reservoir. The first detour of the lake, and immediately curious finds.
“You know, there is such a set of pebbles here that you just wonder where all this comes from. In some places there are pebbles, on them there are parallel cracks. Cracks appear if you apply strong pressure and suddenly release it,”said Alexander Makkaveev, a leading researcher at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
So far, this is only test drilling. Experts explain: if they find something interesting, more thorough excavations will follow. The task of scientists is to take as many samples as possible and conduct laboratory tests to say for sure whether the Moscow region was really subjected to a meteorite bombardment in the past.
Promotional video:
The scientific director of the expedition, Dallas Abbott: “In the composition of any meteorite there is a metal, nickel. There is very little nickel in the soil, and if we find it in large quantities, it can be argued that it was the fall of a cosmic body."
American Dallas Abbott in the Russian outback for the first time. It was her who discovered several craters on Earth. The most famous is an underwater crater near New Zealand. It was formed in 1443. Then, according to Abbott, a huge meteorite fell into the ocean, which caused megatsunami, waves over 100 meters high.
“Falling meteorites are common. But we need to understand what danger they can bring to people. After all, 71 percent of our planet is oceans, and if suddenly there is a blow, megatsunami cannot be avoided,”she said.
In 2009, Dallas made a new sensational report: the little ice age in the sixth century, which lasted four years on Earth, was also caused by the fall of a large meteorite. It was followed by volcanic eruptions, the release of dust into the atmosphere, crop failure, hunger. The result is a worldwide plague epidemic. The Flood could also arise from the fall of a celestial body.
In the history of mankind, there are many myths and legends about the riots of the elements. Not knowing how to explain the cataclysms, people attributed them to otherworldly forces. A striking example is Lake Svetloyar in the Nizhny Novgorod region. This place is associated with the mysterious disappearance of the city of Kitezh, according to legend, sank under the water together with the inhabitants, not wanting to submit to the army of Batu. There is also an earlier one - the Mari myth.
“The tribe of the pans lived here. The goddess Turk was angry with this tribe and sent a fiery horse to heaven, and this horse destroyed the rebellious lords. Where he hit with his hoof, lakes formed,”said Alexei Kiselev, a lecturer at the Astronomy Department of Minin University.
The fall of meteorites is a fairly frequent phenomenon. But unlike the dead moon, where craters are all in full view, on Earth all "cosmic wounds" are quickly healed by winds and rain. Searching for craters is like one of the ways to revive the past in people's memory. Even after centuries, the modern world is not yet able to reflect the cosmic threat.