In what year and where did the Tunguska meteorite fall. Tunguska meteorite: a natural phenomenon or an artificial phenomenon

The TV channel "360" understood why not a single fragment of the Tunguska meteorite, which provoked a powerful explosion, has yet been found.

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Exactly 109 years ago in Siberia there was a powerful explosion caused by the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Despite the fact that more than a century has passed since then, there are still many blank spots in this history. "360" tells what is known about the fallen space body.

In the early morning of June 30, 1908, when the inhabitants of the northern part of Eurasia were still dreaming, a terrible natural disaster nearly broke out over them. Nothing like this was remembered by many generations of people. Something similar could be seen almost 40 years later at the end of the most terrible war in history.

That morning, a monstrous explosion thundered over the deaf Siberian taiga near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. Its capacity was subsequently estimated by scientists at 40-50 megatons. Only the famous Khrushchev's "Tsar Bomba" or "Kuzkin's Mother" could release such energy. The bombs that the Americans dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were much weaker. People who lived in those days in large cities in northern Europe were lucky that this event did not happen over them. The consequences of the explosion in this case would be much worse.

Explosion over the taiga

The place where the Tunguska meteorite fell on June 30, 1908 in the basin of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River (now the Evenk National District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory of the RSFSR). Photo: RIA Novosti.

The fall to Earth of an unknown space alien did not go unnoticed. A few eyewitnesses, taiga hunters and cattle breeders, as well as residents of small settlements scattered in Siberia, saw the flight of a huge fireball over the taiga. Later, an explosion was also heard, the echo of which was caught far from the scene. At a distance of hundreds of kilometers from it, windows were broken in the houses, and the blast wave was recorded by observatories in various countries of the world in both hemispheres. For several more days, shimmering clouds and an unusual glow of the sky were observed in the sky from the Atlantic to Siberia. After the incident, people began to remember that two or three days before that they noticed strange atmospheric phenomena - glows, halo, bright twilight. But whether it was a fantasy or the truth, it’s impossible to establish for sure.

First expedition

Soviet scientist A. Zolotov (left) takes soil samples at the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Photo: RIA Novosti.

Humanity learned much later about what happened at the site of the catastrophe itself - only 19 years later, the first expedition was sent to the area where the mysterious celestial body fell. The initiator of the study of the place where the meteorite fell, which was not yet called Tunguska, was the scientist Leonid Alekseevich Kulik. He was an expert in mineralogy and celestial bodies and led a newly formed expedition to search for them. He came across a description of a mysterious phenomenon in the pre-revolutionary issue of the newspaper Siberian Life. The text explicitly indicated the place of the event, and even cited eyewitness accounts. People even mentioned "the top of a meteorite sticking out of the ground."

The hut of the first expedition of researchers led by Leonid Kulik in the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell. Photo: Vitaly Bezrukikh / RIA Novosti.

In the early 1920s, Kulik's expedition managed to collect only scattered memories of those who remembered the flaming ball in the night sky. This made it possible to approximately establish the area where the space guest fell, where the researchers went in 1927.

Consequences of the explosion

Location of the explosion of the Tunguska meteorite. Photo: RIA Novosti.

The first expedition found out that the consequences of the cataclysm were grandiose. Even according to preliminary estimates, more than 2,000 square kilometers of forest were felled in the fall area. The trees lay with their roots towards the center of the giant circle, pointing the way to the epicenter. When we managed to get to him, the first riddles appeared. In the alleged area of the fall, the forest remained standing “on the vine”. The trees were dead and almost completely devoid of bark. There were no traces of a crater anywhere.

Attempts to unravel the mystery. funny hypotheses

A place in the taiga near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, where a fiery body called the Tunguska meteorite fell 80 years ago (June 30, 1908). Here, on the taiga lake, is the laboratory of the expedition to study this catastrophe. Photo: RIA Novosti.

Kulik devoted his whole life to the search for the Tunguska meteorite. From 1927 to 1938, several expeditions were carried out to the area of the epicenter. But the celestial body was never found, not a single fragment of it was found. There weren't even any dents from the impact. Hope was given by several large depressions, but a detailed study revealed that these were thermokarst pits. Even aerial photography did not help in the search.

The next expedition was planned for 1941, but it was not destined to take place - the war began, which pushed all other issues in the life of the country into the background. At the very beginning, Leonid Alekseevich Kulik went to the front as a volunteer in the division of the people's militia. The scientist died of typhus in the occupied territory in the city of Spas-Demensk.

Fall of the forest in the area of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. Photo: RIA Novosti.

They returned to studying the problem and searching for the crater or the meteorite itself only in 1958. A scientific expedition, organized by the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences, went to the taiga to Podkamennaya Tunguska. She also did not find a single fragment of a celestial body. Over the years, the Tunguska meteorite has attracted many different scientists, researchers and even writers. So, the science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev suggested that an interplanetary spaceship exploded over the Siberian taiga that night, unable to make a soft landing. Other hypotheses, both serious and not so serious, have been put forward. The most ridiculous of them was the assumption that existed among the researchers of the crash site, tortured by midges and mosquitoes: they believed that a huge ball of winged bloodsuckers exploded over the forest, into which a lightning bolt hit.

So what was it

Diamond-graphite intergrowths from the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite on the Podkamennaya Tunguska River near the village of Vanavara in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Photo: RIA Novosti.

To date, the main version is the cometary origin of the Tunguska meteorite. This explains the lack of finds of fragments of a celestial body, because comets are composed of gas and dust. Research, search and construction of new hypotheses continue. The mysterious meteorite, mentioned many times in books, comics, films, TV shows and even in music, may still be waiting for someone who finds its fragments. Awaits the final solution and the mystery of the origin and "death" of the celestial body. Mankind thanks the chance for the fact that the Tunguska meteorite (or comet?) fell in the deaf taiga. If this happened in the center of Europe, most likely, the entire modern history of the Earth would seriously change. And in honor of Leonid Alekseevich Kulik - a romantic and a discoverer - a small planet and a crater on the Moon are named.

Alexander Zhirnov

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Even a few days before the meteorite fell, people around the world noted strange phenomena that foreshadowed that something unusual was coming. In Russia, the subjects of the emperor watched with surprise the silvery clouds, as if illuminated from within. In England, astronomers wrote with bewilderment about the onset of "white night" - a phenomenon unknown in these latitudes. The anomalies lasted about three days - and then the day of the fall came.

Computer simulation of the approach of the Tunguska meteorite to the Earth

June 30, 1908 at 7:15 local time, a meteorite entered the upper atmosphere of the Earth. Having become hot from friction against the air, it began to glow so brightly that this radiance was noticeable at a great distance. People who saw a fireball flying across the sky described it as a burning elongated object, rapidly and noisily crossing the sky. And then, in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, about 60 kilometers north of the Evenki camp of Vanavara, an explosion occurred.

It turned out to be so powerful that it could be heard at a distance of more than 1000 kilometers from Podkamennaya Tunguska. In a few villages and camps within a radius of almost 300 kilometers, glass was knocked out by a shock wave, and an earthquake provoked by a meteorite was recorded by seismographic stations in Central Asia, the Caucasus and even Germany. The explosion uprooted centuries-old trees on an area of 2.2 thousand square meters. km. The light and heat radiation that accompanied it led to a forest fire, which completed the picture of destruction. On that day, in the vast territory of our planet, night did not come.

The power of the meteorite explosion was like that of a hydrogen bomb

The clouds formed after the fall of a meteorite at an altitude of 80 km reflected light, filling the sky with an unusual glow, so bright that it was possible to read without any additional lighting. Never before had people seen anything like it.

Another anomaly worthy of attention was the recorded disturbance of the Earth's magnetic field: real magnetic storms raged on the planet for five days.

Until now, scientists cannot come to a consensus on what the Tunguska meteorite was. Many believe that it would be more correct to call it "Tunguska comet", "Tunguska test of weapons of mass destruction" and even "Tunguska UFO". About the nature of this phenomenon, there are a huge number of both scientific and esoteric theories. More than a hundred different hypotheses were expressed about what happened in the Tunguska taiga: from the explosion of swamp gas to the crash of an alien ship. It was also assumed that an iron or stone meteorite with the inclusion of nickel iron could fall to the Earth; the icy nucleus of a comet; unidentified flying object, starship; giant ball lightning; meteorite from Mars, hard to distinguish from terrestrial rocks. American physicists Albert Jackson and Michael Ryan said that the Earth met with a "black hole".

In Lem's novel, the meteorite is presented as an alien spy ship.

Some researchers suggested that it was a fantastic laser beam or a piece of plasma torn off from the Sun. French astronomer Felix de Roy, a researcher of optical anomalies, suggested that on June 30, the Earth probably collided with a cloud of cosmic dust. However, most scientists are inclined to believe that it was still a meteorite that exploded above the Earth's surface.

It was his traces, starting in 1927, that the first Soviet scientific expeditions led by Leonid Kulik were looking for in the explosion area. But the usual meteor crater was not at the scene. Expeditions found that around the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, the forest was felled like a fan from the center, and in the center some of the trees remained standing on the vine, but without branches. Subsequent expeditions noticed that the felled forest area has a characteristic “butterfly” shape, directed from east-southeast to west-northwest. Modeling the shape of this area and calculating all the circumstances of the fall showed that the explosion did not occur when the body collided with the earth's surface, but even before that in the air at a height of 5-10 km.

The fall of the Tunguska meteorite

In 1988, members of the research expedition of the Siberian Public Foundation "Tunguska Space Phenomenon" led by Yuri Lavbin discovered metal rods near Vanavara.

Lovebin put forward his version of what happened - a huge comet was approaching our planet from space. Some highly developed space civilization became aware of this. Aliens, in order to save the Earth from a global catastrophe, sent their sentinel spacecraft. He had to split the comet. But, unfortunately, the attack of the most powerful cosmic body was not entirely successful for the ship. True, the nucleus of the comet crumbled into several fragments. Some of them hit the Earth, and most of them passed by our planet. The earthlings were saved, but one of the fragments damaged the attacking alien ship, and he made an emergency landing on Earth. Subsequently, the crew of the ship repaired their car and safely left our planet, leaving the failed blocks on it, the remains of which were found by the expedition to the crash site.

Vyborg and Petersburg could become victims of the Tunguska meteorite

Over the years of searching for the wreckage of a space alien, members of various expeditions have found a total of 12 wide conical holes in the disaster area. To what depth they go, no one knows, since no one even tried to study them. All these facts allowed geophysicists to reasonably assume that a careful study of conical holes in the earth would shed light on the Siberian mystery. Some scientists have already begun to express the idea of \u200b\u200bthe earthly origin of the phenomenon.

The site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite

In 2006, according to Yuri Lavbin, in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, at the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, Krasnoyarsk researchers discovered quartz cobblestones with mysterious inscriptions. According to the researchers, strange signs are applied to the surface of quartz in a man-made way, presumably with the help of plasma exposure. Analyzes of quartz cobblestones, which were studied in Krasnoyarsk and Moscow, showed that quartz contains impurities of cosmic substances that cannot be obtained on Earth. Studies have confirmed that the cobblestones are artifacts: many of them are "jointed" layers of plates, each of which is marked with characters of an unknown alphabet. According to Lovebin's hypothesis, quartz cobblestones are fragments of an information container sent to our planet by an extraterrestrial civilization and exploded as a result of an unsuccessful landing.

The most recent hypothesis is the physicist Gennady Bybin, who has been studying the Tunguska anomaly for more than 30 years. Bybin believes that the mysterious body was not a stone meteorite, but an icy comet. He came to this conclusion based on the diaries of the first researcher of the meteorite fall site, Leonid Kulik. At the scene of the incident, Kulik found a substance in the form of ice covered with peat, but did not attach much importance to it, since he was looking for something completely different. However, this compressed ice with combustible gases frozen into it, found 20 years after the explosion, is not a sign of permafrost, as was commonly believed, but evidence that the ice comet theory is correct, the researcher believes. For a comet that shattered into many pieces from a collision with our planet, the Earth became a kind of hot frying pan. The ice on it quickly melted and exploded. Gennady Bybin hopes that his version will be the only true and last one.

Alleged fragments of the Tunguska meteorite

There are those who believe that Nikola Tesla's intervention could not have happened here: the explosion of the Tunguska meteorite could be the result of an experiment by a brilliant scientist on wireless transmission of energy over a distance. Tesla allegedly specifically chose sparsely populated Siberia as a test site, where there was a minimal risk of causing human casualties. Redirecting huge energy with the help of his experimental setup, he released it over the taiga, which led to a powerful explosion. Despite the apparent success of this experiment, Tesla did not report his breakthrough in the study of energy, apparently afraid that his discovery could be used as a weapon. This scientist, known for his anti-militarism, could not allow it.

Podkamennaya Tunguska is a river in Russia, which is a right tributary of the Yenisei. It flows in the Irkutsk region and the Krasnoyarsk Territory, where the Tunguska meteorite fell. This event did not receive due attention at that time. However, later it was studied closely. And they didn't find anything.

On the right bank of the river is the village of Podkamennaya Tunguska. After an unusual incident, this area became known to the whole world. The event is still of concern to researchers. And not only in Russia. The phenomenon of the Tunguska meteorite excites the minds of foreign scientists as well.

The most famous phenomenon of the 20th century

In what year and where did the Tunguska meteorite fall? The fall took place on June 30, 1908. But the old style is June 17th. In the morning at 7:17 a.m., the sky over Siberia lit up with a flash. An object with a fiery tail was seen flying towards Earth.

The explosion that resounded in the Podkamennaya Tunguska basin was deafening. It exceeded the power of the atomic explosion in Hiroshima by 2,000 times.

For reference, in 1945, 2 atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They did not reach the ground, exploding in the atmosphere, but the force of the explosion destroyed many people. In the place of flourishing cities, a desert was formed. Today 2 cities are completely rebuilt.

Consequences of the disaster

An explosion of unknown origin destroyed 2000 km 2 of the taiga, killed all living things that lived in this part of the forest. The shock wave made all of Eurasia shudder and circled the globe twice.

Barometers at Cambridge and Petersfield stations recorded a jump in atmospheric pressure. The whole territory from Siberia to the borders of Western Europe admired the white nights. The phenomenon lasted from June 30 to July 2.

Scientists from Berlin and Hamburg in those distant days were attracted by noctilucent clouds in the sky. They were an accumulation of small particles of ice that were thrown there by a volcanic eruption. However, no eruption was recorded.

But the incident did not attract due attention. Somehow they quickly forgot about him, and then a revolution, a war followed. They returned to the study of the Tunguska meteorite only decades later.

And they did not find anything, except for the consequences of the explosion in the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell. No fragments of a celestial body, nor any other traces of a space guest.

eyewitness accounts

Fortunately, they still managed to interview the inhabitants of Podkamennaya Tunguska. A few days before the explosion, people observed unusual flashes in the sky.

The explosion itself shook the whole of Siberia. Locals have seen animals thrown into the air by his power. The houses shook. And there was a bright flash in the sky. The rumble was heard for another 20 minutes after the fall of an unknown body. By the way, many argue that in fact there was more than one blow. The old Tungus Chuchancha told about this. First, 4 powerful blows followed with the same frequency, and 5 were heard somewhere in the distance. The inhabitants of the village, where the Tunguska meteorite fell, fully felt the forces of the explosion.

At this time, all seismographic stations in Russia, Europe and America recorded a strange shaking of the earth's crust.

People claim that after the explosion there was a strange, frightening silence. Birds and other habitual forest sounds were not heard. The sky dimmed, and the leaves on the trees first turned yellow, then red. By night they were completely blackened. In the direction of Podkamennaya Tunguska, a solid silver wall stood for 8 hours.

What exactly people saw in the sky is hard to say - everyone has their own version. Someone talks about a celestial body (each of the narrators tells about a different form), someone about the fire that engulfed the entire sky. “The shirt on me seemed to catch fire,” said an eyewitness to the events.

thunder god

Today, trees grow again at the place where the meteorite fell. Their increased growth immediately after the disaster speaks of genetic mutations. They are never found in meteorite impact sites, which refutes the logical version. Perhaps, where the Tunguska meteorite fell, a strong electromagnetic field formed.

The giants hit by the blast still lie in neat rows, indicating the direction of the explosion. Burnt trees with uprooted roots remind of a strange catastrophe.

The expedition, which arrived at the site of the explosion in the summer of 2017, examined the fallen trees with a specialist. Local residents, representatives of the peoples of the lower Amur (Evenks, Oroks) believed that they had met with the thunder god Agdy, the devourer of people. It is noteworthy that the place where the Tunguska meteorite fell really resembles a giant bird or butterfly in shape.

Where did the Tunguska meteorite actually fall?

The heart of the disaster in the taiga resembles a crater. However, it is not. The space body (most researchers believe that this was it) probably broke into small pieces when it hit the atmosphere. They could be scattered in different parts of the taiga. Therefore, no traces of a cosmic body were found at the epicenter of the explosion.

Lake Cheko is located just 8 km from the meteorite impact area. Its depth reaches 50 meters and has a conical shape. Italian geologists have suggested that the lake was formed as a result of a meteorite impact.

However, in 2016, their Russian colleagues took samples of lake sediments and submitted them for examination. It turned out that the lake is at least 280 years old. Perhaps even more.

One of the correspondents wrote that one of his neighbors observed a flying star that fell into the water. Will meteorite particles never be found?

The comet burned up before the fall

One of the most popular and plausible versions is a comet that burned up in the atmosphere. The body, which consisted of mud, ice and snow, could simply not reach the Earth. During the fall, it warmed up to several thousand degrees and shattered into small pieces at a height of 5-7 km above the ground. Therefore, the remains of it were not found.

However, in the soil, at the place where the Tunguska meteorite fell, traces of cometary mud and water were preserved. They are preserved in sphagnum mosses, which form peat. The layer formed in 1908 contains an increased content of cosmic dust.

Black and white?

The theory put forward by Andrey Tyunyaev has already been published in the journal. It is based on the fact of the existence of black and white holes.

A black hole absorbs microparticles. No one will ever know what happens to them after falling into her mouth. A black hole transforms matter into space. A white hole is capable of forming this matter from space. Both of them perform the function of the circulation of substances. That is, they perform opposite tasks. Tyunyaev is sure that all celestial bodies are formed precisely thanks to a white hole.

Perhaps the Tunguska meteorite really was the result of the work of a white hole. But where did she come from in Siberia? There are 2 theories: either it was formed in outer space, near the Earth, or emerged from the bowels of our planet. And the explosion could provoke the contact of hydrogen, which is released during the operation of the white hole, with oxygen. During the explosion, only water is formed, which is very abundant in the area of the incident.

A white hole is a phenomenon so far little studied and even devoid of a sufficient number of theories. How her black sister is formed, scientists know. Perhaps they work together and complement each other. Perhaps these are two sides of the same object, which is connected by a wormhole.

Damn Cemetery

Strange phenomena in the form of silence and blackened leaves may indicate a distortion of time, physicists say. The fact is that not far from the place where the Tunguska meteorite fell (the facts confirm this information) there is an anomalous zone. They call it the Devil's Cemetery. This place gained terrible fame back in the mid-thirties.

The shepherds lost several cows while moving their herd to the Kova River. Puzzled, they, along with the dogs, began to look for them. And soon they came to a desert area, completely devoid of vegetation. There were torn cows and dead birds. The dogs ran away with their tails between their legs, while the men managed to pull the cows out with hooks. But their meat was inedible. The dogs that ran out into the clearing also soon died of unknown diseases.

This area has been explored by many expeditions. Four went missing in the taiga, the rest died shortly after visiting the Devil's cemetery.

Local residents claim that at night they see strange lights in those places and hear heartbreaking screams. Foresters are sure that they see ghosts in the forest.

sensational speculation

The science fiction writer Kazantsev in 1908 voiced the version that an alien ship had fallen to Earth, which had lost control. Therefore, the explosion occurred in the middle of the taiga, and not in a city or village - the ship was deliberately sent to a deserted area in order to save people's lives.

Kazantsev based his version on the assumption that the explosion was not nuclear, but airborne. Surprisingly, this theory was confirmed by scientists in 1958 - the explosion was indeed air. Medical examinations were carried out. And the local residents did not find any signs of radiation sickness. Perhaps, experts believe, together with a meteorite, a substance unknown to science hit the Earth. It kills all life and distorts the passage of time.

Secrets of the Tunguska meteorite and interesting facts about it

To date, none of the hypotheses (and there are more than a hundred of them) is not able to explain all the features that accompanied the explosion.

Some interesting facts about the Tunguska meteorite:

If the catastrophe had occurred 4 hours later, but in the same place where the Tunguska meteorite fell, the city of Vyborg would have been destroyed. And St. Petersburg is significantly damaged.
708 eyewitnesses of the event indicated different directions of motion of the cosmic body. Most likely, two or maybe three objects collided at once.
Glass trembled, objects fell, dishes broke. Women ran out into the street in horror, crying. They thought it was the end of the world.
There is a version that the catastrophe was a consequence of the Russian revolution of 1905-1907. God was angry with St. Petersburg, so the direction of the shock wave pointed to this city.
Thunderous sounds were heard both during the flight of the car, and before and after its landing. And his light was so bright that it surpassed the sun.
The power of the explosion is estimated by experts at 40-50 megatons. This is thousands of times more powerful than the atomic bomb that America dropped on Hiroshima.

Finally

The place where the Tunguska meteorite fell (what area of the epicenter of events is indicated above is the Krasnoyarsk Territory) is still of interest to researchers. Perhaps this phenomenon is one of the most mysterious events of the last century. Whether it will ever be solved is unknown.

On June 30, 1908, at about 7 am local time, a unique natural event occurred over the territory of Eastern Siberia in the basin of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River (Evenki district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory).
For several seconds, a dazzling bright bolide was observed in the sky, moving from the southeast to the northwest. The flight of this unusual celestial body was accompanied by a sound reminiscent of thunder. On the path of the fireball, which was visible on the territory of Eastern Siberia within a radius of up to 800 kilometers, a powerful dust trail remained, which persisted for several hours.

After the light phenomena over the deserted taiga, a super-powerful explosion was heard at an altitude of 7-10 kilometers. The energy of the explosion ranged from 10 to 40 megatons of TNT, which is comparable to the energy of two thousand nuclear bombs detonated simultaneously, like the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
The catastrophe was witnessed by the inhabitants of the small trading post of Vanavara (now the village of Vanavara) and those few Evenk nomads who were hunting not far from the epicenter of the explosion.

In a matter of seconds, a forest was tumbled down by a blast wave within a radius of about 40 kilometers, animals were destroyed, and people were injured. At the same time, under the influence of light radiation, the taiga flared up for tens of kilometers around. A continuous fall of trees occurred on an area of more than 2,000 square kilometers.
In many villages, shaking of the soil and buildings was felt, window panes were shattered, household utensils were falling from the shelves. Many people, as well as pets, were knocked down by the air wave.
The explosive air wave that circled the globe was recorded by many meteorological observatories around the world.

On the first day after the catastrophe, almost in the entire northern hemisphere - from Bordeaux to Tashkent, from the Atlantic coast to Krasnoyarsk - twilight, unusual in brightness and color, night glow of the sky, bright noctilucent clouds, daytime optical effects - halos and crowns around the sun. The radiance of the sky was so strong that many residents could not sleep. Clouds formed at an altitude of about 80 kilometers intensely reflected the sun's rays, thereby creating the effect of bright nights even where they had not been observed before. In a number of cities one could freely read a newspaper printed in small print at night, and in Greenwich at midnight a photograph of the seaport was obtained. This phenomenon continued for several more nights.
The disaster caused fluctuations in the magnetic field, recorded in Irkutsk and the German city of Kiel. The magnetic storm resembled in its parameters the perturbations of the Earth's magnetic field observed after high-altitude nuclear explosions.

In 1927, Leonid Kulik, the pioneer of the Tunguska catastrophe, suggested that a large iron meteorite had fallen in Central Siberia. In the same year, he surveyed the site of the event. A radial fall of the forest around the epicenter was discovered within a radius of up to 15-30 kilometers. The forest turned out to be tumbled down like a fan from the center, and in the center part of the trees remained standing on the vine, but without branches. The meteorite was never found.
The comet hypothesis was first put forward by the English meteorologist Francis Whipple in 1934, and subsequently it was developed in detail by the Soviet astrophysicist, academician Vasily Fesenkov.
In 1928-1930, the Academy of Sciences of the USSR conducted two more expeditions under the leadership of Kulik, and in 1938-1939, an aerial photograph was taken of the central part of the felled forest region.
Since 1958, the study of the epicenter region was resumed, and the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences conducted three expeditions led by the Soviet scientist Kirill Florensky. At the same time, studies were started by amateur enthusiasts, united in the so-called complex amateur expedition (CSE).
Scientists are faced with the main mystery of the Tunguska meteorite - a powerful explosion clearly occurred over the taiga, knocking down a forest over a huge area, but what caused it left no traces.

The Tunguska catastrophe is one of the most mysterious phenomena of the 20th century.

There are over a hundred versions. At the same time, after all, perhaps no meteorite fell. In addition to the version of the fall of the meteorite, there were hypotheses that the Tunguska explosion was associated with a giant ball lightning, a black hole that entered the Earth, an explosion of natural gas from a tectonic crack, a collision of the Earth with a mass of antimatter, a laser signal from an alien civilization, or an unsuccessful experiment by physicist Nikola Tesla. One of the most exotic hypotheses is the crash of an alien spacecraft.
According to many scientists, the Tunguska body was still a comet that completely evaporated at high altitude.

In 2013, Ukrainian and American geologists of grains found by Soviet scientists near the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite came to the conclusion that they belonged to a meteorite from the class of carbonaceous chondrites, and not to a comet.

Meanwhile, Phil Blend, an associate at the Australian University of Curtin, made two arguments calling into question the links between the samples and the Tunguska explosion. According to the scientist, they have a suspiciously low concentration of iridium, which is not typical for meteorites, and the peat where the samples were found is not dated to 1908, that is, the stones found could have hit Earth earlier or later than the famous explosion.

On October 9, 1995, in the southeast of Evenkia, near the village of Vanavara, the Tungussky State Nature Reserve was established by decree of the Russian government.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

On the early summer morning of June 30, 1908, a phenomenon took place in the depths of Russian Siberia, which later became known as Tunguska meteorite.

Strange events preceded the disaster. Since June 21, 1908 - even 9 days before it - in many places in Europe and Western Siberia, the sky was full of bright colored dawns. White nights for several days ceased to be the monopoly of the northerners In the twilight sky, strange long silvery clouds, elongated from east to west, shone brightly. Since June 27, the number of such sightings has been growing rapidly. At the same time, unusually frequent appearances of bright meteors were noted.

On June 30, at 7 am local time, a monstrous explosion thundered in the basin of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, 65 km north of the Vanavara trading post, in the remote Siberian taiga. Millions of centuries-old trees at a distance of up to 45 km from the crash site were uprooted and thrown to the ground, hellish heat engulfed the ground for a few moments, dry moss and dry wood flared up. The sounds of the explosion were heard at a distance of up to 1200 km from the place of the explosion, up to 1000 km the ground was shaking, 200-300 km away the glass in the windows of houses was broken. The air wave of the Tunguska explosion circled the globe and was recorded by many weather stations in the world. All this was preceded by the flight of a large and unusually bright fireball, which was observed by thousands of residents of the Krasnoyarsk Territory at a distance of up to 400 km to the east of the explosion site.

Thunder rumbles were heard for almost a thousand kilometers around. The flight of the space alien ended with a grandiose explosion over the deserted taiga at an altitude of about 5 - 10 km, followed by a continuous fall of the taiga in the interfluve of Kimchu and Khushmo - tributaries of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, 65 km from the village of Vanavara (Evenkia). Living witnesses of the cosmic catastrophe were the inhabitants of Vanavara and those few Evenk nomads who were in the taiga.
Because of the powerful light flash Tunguska explosion and a stream of hot gases, a forest fire broke out, which completed the devastation of the area. On a vast expanse bounded from the east by the Yenisei, from the south by the line "Tashkent - Stavropol - Sevastopol - northern Italy - Bordeaux", from the west - by the Atlantic coast of Europe, unprecedented in scale and completely unusual light phenomena unfolded, which went down in history under the name "bright nights of the summer of 1908". Clouds formed at an altitude of about 80 km intensely reflected the sun's rays, thereby creating the effect of bright nights even where they had not been observed before. On the whole of this gigantic territory, on the evening of June 30, night practically did not fall: the entire sky shone (it was possible to read a newspaper at midnight without artificial lighting). This phenomenon continued for several nights.

Tunguska meteorite for many years he turned the taiga rich in vegetation into a dead forest cemetery. A study of the consequences of the catastrophe showed that the energy of the explosion was 10-40 megatons of TNT equivalent, which is comparable to the energy of two thousand nuclear bombs detonated simultaneously, like the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Later, increased tree growth was found in the center of the explosion, indicating a radiation release.

The first studies of this phenomenon began already under Soviet rule: in 1927-39 of the last century, to the place of fall Tunguska meteorite four expeditions organized by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR were sent. They were headed by a specialist in mineralogy and the study of meteorites Leonid Alekseevich Kulik.
A grandiose picture of destruction appeared before the eyes of the participants in Kulik's first expedition. The graveyard of centuries-old taiga giants stretched like a continuous flooring for many kilometers. Darkly pierced the sky with “needles” of bare trees, stripped by the explosion and burned in places, but remaining on the vine. Getting lost in the remote Siberian taiga is a trifling matter. Here it was simply impossible: all the fallen trees were rooted almost in one place.
It was here, in the very center of the disaster, it would seem that it was necessary to look for traces of a formidable space alien. But three expeditions in a row - several years of hard, dramatic work do not bring success: the remnants Tunguska meteorite was not found.
Only in 1938, before the fourth expedition, was an incomplete aerial survey of the fall of the forest and the central part of the disaster area carried out, which immediately gave interesting results.
Science fiction writer Alexander Petrovich Kazantsev in 1946 proposed a version that Tunguska meteorite this is an interplanetary ship from another planet, which experienced an explosion as a result of an accident of a nuclear reactor above the earth itself. The reasoning that led Kazantsev to this idea was based on a sound idea: the stagnant forest at the epicenter of the disaster could only be explained on the assumption that the explosion occurred not on the ground, but in the air.

American physicists Albert Jackson and Michael Ryan declared that the Earth met with a "black hole"; some researchers suggested that it was a fantastic laser beam or a piece of plasma detached from the Sun; French astronomer Felix de Roy, a researcher of optical anomalies, suggested that on June 30, the Earth probably collided with a cloud of cosmic dust.

Since 1959, the Tunguska taiga has become a place of persistent searches. The search for radioactivity, reliably associated with the events of 1908, does not bring success. Young enthusiasts are included in the work of a new, large expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1961 under the leadership of K. Florensky. A working hypothesis was proposed by academician V. Fesenkov: there was an explosion of the nucleus of a small comet, which entered the dense layers of the atmosphere at a tremendous cosmic speed.
In 1988, participants in a research expedition of the Siberian Public Foundation "" led by Yuri Lavbin, Corresponding Member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts (St. Petersburg), discovered metal rods near Vanavara. Lovebin put forward his version of what happened - a huge comet was approaching our planet from space. Some highly developed space civilization became aware of this. Aliens, in order to save the Earth from a global catastrophe, sent their sentinel spacecraft. He had to split the comet. But, unfortunately, the attack of the most powerful cosmic body was not entirely successful for the ship. True, the nucleus of the comet crumbled into several fragments. Some of them hit the Earth, and most of them passed by our planet. The earthlings were saved, but one of the fragments damaged the attacking alien ship, and he made an emergency landing on Earth. Subsequently, the crew of the ship repaired their car and safely left our planet, leaving the failed blocks on it, the remains of which were found by the expedition to the crash site.

For many years of searching for the wreckage Tunguska meteorite members of various expeditions found a total of 12 wide conical holes in the disaster area. To what depth they go, no one knows, since no one even tried to study them. Recently, however, researchers for the first time thought about the origin of the holes and the picture of the felling of trees in the area of the cataclysm. According to all known theories and practice itself, fallen trunks should lie in parallel rows. And here they lie clearly anti-scientific. This means that the explosion was not classical, but somehow completely unknown to science. All these facts allowed geophysicists to reasonably assume that a careful study of conical holes in the earth would shed light on the Siberian mystery. Some scientists have already begun to express the idea of \u200b\u200bthe earthly origin of the phenomenon.

In 2006, according to the president of the fund " Tunguska space phenomenon"Yuri Lavbin, in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River at the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, Krasnoyarsk researchers discovered quartz cobblestones with mysterious inscriptions. According to the researchers, strange signs are applied to the surface of quartz in a technogenic way, presumably with the help of plasma exposure. Analyzes of quartz cobblestones that were studied in Krasnoyarsk and in Moscow, have shown that quartz contains impurities of cosmic substances that cannot be obtained on Earth.Studies have confirmed that the cobblestones are artifacts: many of them are fused layers of plates, each of which is marked with characters of an unknown alphabet.According to Lovebin's hypothesis , quartz cobblestones - fragments of an information container sent to our planet by an extraterrestrial civilization and exploded as a result of an unsuccessful landing.

The most recent is the ice comet hypothesis put forward by physicist Gennady Bybin, who has been studying the Tunguska anomaly for more than 30 years. Bybin believes that the mysterious body was not a stone meteorite, but an icy comet. He came to this conclusion based on the diaries of Leonid Kulik, the first researcher of the meteorite fall site. At the scene of the incident, Kulik found a substance in the form of ice covered with peat, but did not attach much importance to it, since he was looking for something completely different. However, this compressed ice with combustible gases frozen into it, found 20 years after the explosion, is not a sign of permafrost, as was commonly believed, but evidence that the ice comet theory is correct, the researcher believes. For a comet that shattered into many pieces from a collision with our planet, the Earth became a kind of hot frying pan. The ice on it quickly melted and exploded. Gennady Bybin hopes that his version will be the only true and last one.
However, most scientists are inclined to believe that it was still a meteorite that exploded above the Earth's surface. It was his traces, starting from 1927, that the first Soviet scientific expeditions led by Leonid Kulik were looking for in the explosion area. But the usual meteor crater was not at the scene. Expeditions found that around the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, the forest was felled like a fan from the center, and in the center some of the trees remained standing on the vine, but without branches.

Subsequent expeditions noticed that the area of fallen forest has a characteristic butterfly shape, directed from east-southeast to west-northwest. The total area of fallen forest is about 2200 square kilometers. Modeling the shape of this area and computer calculations of all the circumstances of the fall showed that the explosion did not occur when the body collided with the earth's surface, but even before that in the air at a height of 5-10 km.
Writers also gave their versions of the Tunguska phenomenon. The famous science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev described the Tunguska phenomenon as a catastrophe of a spaceship flying to us from Mars. Writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in the book "Monday begins on Saturday" put forward a comic hypothesis about counter-winding. In it, the events of 1908 are explained by the reverse course of time, i.e. not by the arrival of the spacecraft to Earth, but by its launch.
But these are all just hypotheses, and the mystery of the Tunguska meteorite so it remains a mystery.