When the Tunguska fell. How the Tunguska meteorite fell

110 years ago a famous man fell in Siberia Tunguska meteorite. Why it is called the “Tunguska phenomenon”, what eyewitnesses saw, how the research was carried out and how it influenced popular culture, Gazeta.Ru examined.

The mysterious explosion that occurred in Siberia, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on the morning of June 30, 1908, exactly 110 years ago, continues to excite the minds of researchers. This event is noteworthy because it is considered the largest fall of a celestial body to Earth in modern history. It also fascinates with its mystery - after all, reliable large fragments of the “meteorite” were never found, despite long searches and many expeditions.

Many people prefer the “Tunguska cosmic body” or even the “Tunguska phenomenon” to the traditional “Tunguska meteorite.”

Of course, people were lucky that the fall of a cosmic body happened in a deserted area. In densely populated areas, numerous casualties could not be avoided, because, according to experts, the power of the explosion corresponded to the most powerful of the exploded hydrogen bombs, and the affected area was comparable to the size of modern Moscow.

The much smaller Chelyabinsk meteorite, which fell on February 15, 2013, became famous not only for leaving numerous recordings on video recorders, but also for hundreds or thousands of victims, broken windows and other destruction.

Why do they speak first of all about the cosmic origin of the phenomenon? First of all, thanks to reliable observations of the fall of a bright fireball moving in the server direction, which ended with a powerful explosion. The blast wave was recorded throughout the world, including in the Western Hemisphere, and a seismic wave and magnetic storm were also recorded. For several days after this, an intense glow of the sky and luminous clouds were observed over a vast area.

The first expeditions to that inaccessible area and interviews with real witnesses were not immediately organized.

The Soviet scientist Leonid Kulik became a great enthusiast for studying the Tunguska phenomenon. In 1927–1939, he organized and led several expeditions, the main purpose of which was to search for the remains of the “meteorite”. However, the first expedition, organized by him with the support of academicians Vernadsky and Fersman back in 1921, was limited only to the collected eyewitness accounts, which made it possible to clarify the crash site itself.

And the planned next expedition in 1941 did not take place due to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Kulik then volunteered for militia, was wounded, captured by Germans and died in a Nazi camp in a typhoid barracks.

It was Kulik’s expedition that made it possible to establish that in the place where the meteorite supposedly fell, a forest had been felled over a large area (about 2000 km²), and at the epicenter the trees remained standing, devoid of branches and bark. However, there was a snag in the search for the expected crater, which over time grew into one of the “main scientific mysteries of the century.” For some time, Kulik assumed that the crater was hidden by a swamp, but even then it became clear that the destruction of the main body of the “meteorite” occurred in the air above the taiga, at a height of five or ten kilometers.

The collected eyewitness accounts are interesting. Semyon Semenov, a resident of the Vanavara trading post (70 km southeast of the epicenter of the explosion), spoke about this event as follows: “... 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 sound swipe. I was thrown three fathoms off the porch. After the blow, there was such a knocking sound, as if stones were falling from the sky or being fired from cannons, the earth shook, and when I was lying on the ground, I pressed my head, fearing that the stones would break my head. At that moment, when the sky opened, a hot wind rushed from the north, like from a cannon, which left traces in the form of paths on the ground. Then it turned out that many of the windows were broken, and the iron bar for the door lock was broken.”

Even closer to the epicenter were the Evenk brothers Chuchanchi and Chekarena Shanyagir (their tent was located 30 km to the southeast): “We heard a whistle and sensed a strong wind. Chekaren also shouted to me: “Do you hear how many goldeneyes or mergansers are flying?” We were still in the plague and we couldn’t see what was happening in the forest... Behind the plague there was some noise, we could hear the trees falling. Chekaren and I got out of the bags and were about to jump out of the chum, but suddenly thunder struck very hard. This was the first blow. The earth began to twitch and sway, a strong wind hit our chum and knocked it down.

There is smoke all around, it hurts your eyes, it’s hot, very hot, you could burn. Suddenly, over the mountain where the forest had already fallen, it became very light, and, how can I tell you, as if a second sun had appeared, the Russians would say: “Suddenly it suddenly flashed,” my eyes began to hurt, and I even closed them. It looked like what the Russians call “lightning”. And immediately there was agdylyan, 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!”

The most authoritative theories of the Tunguska phenomenon agree that some large body that came to us from space exploded in the air over Podkamennaya Tunguska. Only the descriptions of its properties, origin, model (at what angle it entered) differ. It could be a fragment of an asteroid or comet, and it could consist of ice or stones, but most likely we are still talking about something non-monolithic, porous, like pumice, otherwise large fragments would have already been discovered.

The comet hypothesis arose back in the 1930s, and even in our time, experts, including those at NASA, agree that the Tunguska meteorite consisted mainly of ice. This is evidenced by the rainbow stripes that followed this body (according to the descriptions of some eyewitnesses), and the noctilucent clouds observed a day after the fall. The majority of Russian researchers share the same opinion. This hypothesis is confirmed quite reliably by numerical calculations carried out repeatedly.

Of course, the substance of the “meteorite” did not consist of one pure ice, and something fell to the ground after the explosion, but most of the original material still ended up distributed in the atmosphere or dispersed over a vast area. This decay pattern explains the presence of two successive shock waves that were reported by witnesses to the explosion.

Even Kulik’s expedition found microscopic silicate and magnetite balls at the crash site and recorded an increased content of elements indicating the possible cosmic origin of the fallen material. In 2013, the journal Planetary and Space Science reported that microscopic samples discovered by Nikolai Kovalykh in 1978 in the Podkamennaya Tunguska region revealed the presence of forms of carbon formed by high blood pressure and associated with the fall of extraterrestrial bodies - lonsdaleite, as well as troilite (iron sulfide), taenite, etc.

Some noise arose in connection with the story of the "Italians in Russia" who explored Lake Checo eleven years ago. This is a 500-meter lake, located 8 km north of the supposed epicenter of the explosion in a remote uninhabited area, it has a rather strange and round shape. It was already studied in the 1960s, but then it did not generate much interest. It is still not known for sure whether Lake Cheko existed before 1908 (the presence of the lake is not noted on any map of that time).

Previously, it was believed that Cheko was either of karst origin, or an ancient volcanic crater, or created by the Kimchu River flowing into it.

The Italians, led by geologist Luca Gasperini from the Institute of Marine Geology in Bologna, analyzing sedimentary rocks, stated that the age of the lake is around one century, that is, approximately corresponds to the time of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite.

Gasperini claims that unusual shape The lakes are the result of a large fragment hitting the ground, thrown aside during the explosion of the Tunguska meteorite and plowing the soil at an angle, which allowed the fragment to create a pit of the appropriate shape.

“We assume that the 10-meter, 1,500-ton fragment escaped destruction during the explosion and continued to fly in its original direction,” says Gasperini. - It moved relatively slowly, at a speed of approximately 1 km/s. The lake is located exactly on the likely path of the cosmic body. This fragment sank into soft, marshy soil and melted a layer of permafrost, releasing a certain amount of carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane, which widened the original gap, giving the lake a shape not quite typical of an impact crater. Our hypothesis is the only reasonable explanation for the funnel-shaped bottom of Lake Cheko.”

The work of Italian researchers caused a great resonance in the scientific community, many were skeptical about it, but in essence it still does not change anything regarding the origin of the bulk of the cosmic body that exploded in another place. And Gasperini himself states that their hypothesis is compatible with almost any previous option: “If the object was an asteroid, then the surviving fragment could be buried under the lake. And if it was a comet, then its chemical signature should be found in the deepest layers of sediments.”

One way or another, the Tunguska meteorite and its next anniversary are an event of global importance, for which they were preparing not only in Russia.

However, the Tunguska meteorite not only contributes to the emergence of a keen interest in science among the general public and serves as a formidable reminder of the dangers threatening us from space. He became a kind of business card for all sorts of scientific charlatans who are ready to exploit interest in the mystery and produce irresponsible theories. They tried to connect the “Tunguska phenomenon” with ball lightning, a sudden volcanic eruption induced by an earthquake, the explosion of a methane bubble, the invasion of antimatter, microscopic black holes, as well as the accident of an alien spaceship, a laser gun strike on the Earth and the experiments of the American physicist Tesla.

At one time, every self-respecting science fiction writer considered it his direct responsibility to propose his own hypothesis of the origin of the “Tunguska phenomenon,” or even more than one. Alexander Kazantsev was the first to connect the explosion with the unsuccessful landing of the spacecraft. Semyon Slepynin, Stanislav Lem, Kir Bulychev, Genrikh Altov with Valentina Zhuravleva and many others exploited the same theme, and the Strugatsky brothers in the story “Monday Begins on Saturday” went further, actually offering a parody of Kazantsev’s “Explosion”.

In their “counterwinding” interpretation, on the alien ship time went backwards, and even discretely, that is, after midnight our previous day began. Therefore, the aliens who collided with the Earth did not understand anything, found no traces of the disaster, and went home. WITH light hand Strugatsky in the area of ​​Podkamennaya Tunguska, other experimental time machines also began to explode, for example in the works of science fiction writer Kir Bulychev (“The Girl to Whom Nothing Will Happen”) and the film “Draft” based on the work of the same name by Sergei Lukyanenko.

At some point, the Ural Pathfinder magazine refused to even accept stories mentioning the “Tunguska Phenomenon,” but this, of course, did not help, and such stories continue to multiply, as do irresponsible “bold scientific” theories.

On June 30, 1908, at about 7 o'clock in the morning, a large fireball flew through the Earth's atmosphere from southeast to northwest and exploded in the Siberian taiga, in the area of ​​the Podkamennaya Tunguska River.

The place where the Tunguska meteorite fell on the map of Russia

A dazzling bright ball was visible in Central Siberia within a radius of 600 kilometers, and heard within a radius of 1000 kilometers. The power of the explosion was later estimated at 10-50 megatons, which corresponds to the energy of two thousand atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, or the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb. The air wave was so strong that it knocked down a forest within a radius of 40 kilometers. Total area felled forest amounted to about 2,200 square kilometers. And due to the flow of hot gases as a result of the explosion, a fire broke out, which completed the devastation of the surrounding area and turned it into a taiga cemetery for many years.

Lesoval in the area of ​​the Tunguska meteorite fall

The air wave generated by the unprecedented explosion circled the globe twice. It was recorded in seismographic laboratories in Copenhagen, Zagreb, Washington, Potsdam, London, Jakarta and other cities.

A few minutes after the explosion, a magnetic storm began. It lasted about four hours.

Eyewitness accounts

"... 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 tear and throw off my shirt, but the sky slammed shut, and there was a strong blow. I was thrown from the porch about three fathoms. After the blow, there was such a knock as if stones were falling from the sky or guns were shooting, the earth shook, and when I was lying on the ground, I pressed my head, fearing that the stones would fall. They didn’t break their heads. At that moment, when the sky opened, a hot wind rushed from the north, like from a cannon, which left traces in the form of paths on the ground. Then it turned out that many of the windows were broken, and the iron bar for the door lock was broken. ".
Semyon Semenov, resident of the Vanavara trading post, 70 km from the epicenter of the explosion ("Knowledge is Power", 2003, No. 60)

“On the morning of June 17, at the beginning of the 9th hour, we observed some unusual natural phenomenon. In the village of N.-Karelinsky (200 versts from Kirensk to the north), peasants saw in the northwest, quite high above the horizon, some extremely strong (it was impossible to see) body glowing with a white, bluish light, moving for 10 minutes from top to bottom. The body appeared in the form of a “pipe,” that is, the sky was cloudless, only not high above the horizon, in the same direction. , in which a luminous body was observed, a small dark cloud was visible. It was hot, dry. Approaching the ground (the forest), the shiny body seemed to blur, and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke was formed and an extremely strong knock (not thunder) was heard. as if from large falling stones or cannon fire. All the buildings trembled. At the same time, flames of an indefinite shape began to burst out of the cloud. All the inhabitants of the village ran to the streets in panic, the women were crying, everyone thought that the end of the world was coming."
S. Kulesh, newspaper "Siberia", July 29 (15), 1908

Over a vast area from the Yenisei to the Atlantic coast of Europe, unusual light phenomena of an unprecedented scale unfolded, which went down in history under the name “bright nights of the summer of 1908.” The clouds, which formed at an altitude of about 80 km, intensely reflected sun rays, thereby creating the effect of bright nights even where they have never been observed before. Throughout this vast territory, on the evening of June 30, night practically did not fall: the entire sky was glowing, so that it was possible to read a newspaper at midnight without artificial lighting. This phenomenon continued until July 4th. It is interesting that similar atmospheric anomalies began in 1908 long before the Tunguska explosion: unusual glows, flashes of light and colored lightning were observed over North America and the Atlantic, over Europe and Russia 3 months before the Tunguska explosion.

Later, at the epicenter of the explosion, enhanced growth trees, which indicates genetic mutations. Such anomalies are never observed at meteorite impact sites, but are very similar to those caused by hard ionizing radiation or strong electromagnetic fields.

A section of larch from the area where the Tunguska body fell, cut down in 1958.
The 1908 annual layer appears dark. Accelerated growth is clearly visible
larch after 1908, when the tree suffered radiant burn.

Scientific research This phenomenon began only in the 20s of the last century. The place where the celestial body fell was explored by 4 expeditions organized by the USSR Academy of Sciences and headed by Leonid Alekseevich Kulik (1927) and Kirill Pavlovich Florensky (after the Great Patriotic War). The only thing that was found were small silicate and magnetite balls, which, according to scientists, are the product of the destruction of the Tunguska alien. Researchers did not find a characteristic meteor crater, although later for many years During the search for fragments of the Tunguska meteorite, members of various expeditions discovered a total of 12 wide conical holes in the disaster area. No one knows to what depth they go, since no one has even tried to study them. It was discovered that around the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite, the forest was fanned out from the center, and in the center some of the trees remained standing, but without branches and without bark. “It was like a forest of telephone poles.”

Subsequent expeditions noticed that the area of ​​fallen forest was shaped like a butterfly. Computer modeling of the shape of this area, taking into account 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 an altitude of 5–10 km, and the weight of the space alien was estimated at 5 million tons.

Scheme of forest felling around the epicenter of the Tunguska explosion
along the “butterfly” with the axis of symmetry AB taken
for the main direction of the trajectory of the Tunguska meteorite.

More than 100 years have passed since then, but the mystery of the Tunguska phenomenon still remains unsolved.

There are many hypotheses about the nature of the Tunguska meteorite - about 100! None of them provides an explanation for all the phenomena that were observed during the Tunguska phenomenon. Some believe that it was a giant meteorite, others are inclined to believe that it was an asteroid; there are hypotheses about the volcanic origin of the Tunguska phenomenon (the epicenter of the Tunguska explosion surprisingly coincides exactly with the center of the ancient volcano). The hypothesis that the Tunguska meteorite is an extraterrestrial interplanetary ship that crashed in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere is also very popular. This hypothesis was put forward in 1945 by science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev. However the largest number Researchers consider the most plausible hypothesis that the Tunguska alien was the nucleus or fragment of the nucleus of a comet (the main suspect is Comet Encke), which burst into the Earth’s atmosphere, heated up from friction with the air and exploded before reaching the earth’s surface - that’s why there is no crater. The trees were felled by the shock wave from the air explosion, and the ice fragments that fell to the ground simply melted.

Hypotheses about the nature of the Tunguska alien continue to be put forward to this day. So, in 2009, NASA experts suggested that it was indeed a giant meteorite, but not stone, but ice. This hypothesis explains the absence of traces of the meteorite on Earth and the appearance of noctilucent clouds, which were observed a day after the Tunguska meteorite fell to Earth. According to this hypothesis, they appeared as a result of the passage of a meteorite through the dense layers of the atmosphere: this began the release of water molecules and microparticles of ice, which led to the formation of noctilucent clouds in the upper layers of the atmosphere.

It should be noted that the Americans were not the first to hypothesize about the icy nature of the Tunguska meteorite: Soviet physicists made such an assumption a quarter of a century ago. However, it became possible to test the plausibility of this hypothesis only with the advent of specialized equipment, such as the AIM satellite - it conducted research on noctilucent clouds in 2007.

This is how the Podkamennaya Tunguska area looks from the air today

The Tunguska disaster is one of the most well-studied, but at the same time the most mysterious phenomena of the twentieth century. Dozens of expeditions, hundreds of scientific articles, thousands of researchers were only able to increase knowledge about it, but were never able to clearly answer a simple question: what was it?

The Tunguska meteorite is a kind of space object that caused an air explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in. The event occurred on June 17, 1908, but it has not yet been solved.

Tunguska meteorite is also called the Tunguska phenomenon, and the abbreviation TKT is also used - Tunguska cosmic body.

In this article we will look at different versions of the mysterious explosion that occurred at the beginning of the last century, and try to understand: it was an artificial phenomenon, or only forces were involved in it.

The fall of the Tunguska meteorite

In the early morning of June 17, 1908, a bright flash was seen in the sky over Siberia. After this, according to eyewitnesses, a certain object with a fiery tail began to approach the ground at great speed.

A few seconds later there was a deafening explosion that was heard over a great distance. It was 2000 times greater than the power of the atomic bombs dropped on.

Consequences of the disaster

As a result of the Tunguska explosion, about 2,000 km² of forest were destroyed, along with and. The shock wave was so strong that it circled the entire planet twice.

Barometers recorded sharp jump atmospheric pressure. Those who lived in the territory from Siberia to Western Europe could see white nights that lasted for 3 days.

An interesting fact is that German scientists noticed noctilucent clouds, consisting of a cluster of ice particles that appeared as a result. But at that time no eruption occurred anywhere.

Surprisingly, no one paid enough attention to this incident. Only decades later did scientists begin to take a more serious interest in the so-called Tunguska meteorite.

However, after much research, they were unable to find out the nature of the explosion. This gave rise to even more questions and versions regarding the phenomenon, which began to be called the Tunguska meteorite.

Eyewitness accounts

Fortunately, residents who lived near the incident were interviewed. They all unanimously insisted that even a few days before the explosion, some strange flashes similar to lightning could be seen in the sky.

After the explosion, the earth shook violently. Then a loud boom was heard for about 20 minutes. There were also those who said that in fact there were several explosions, not just one.

Interestingly, Russian, European and American seismographic stations recorded an unusual vibration of the earth's crust that day.

People claimed that after the incident there was deathly silence. The sky darkened, and the leaves on the trees first turned yellow, and after a few hours turned black. In addition, in the direction of Podkamennaya Tunguska, a silvery wall could be seen for 8 hours.

However, since the descriptions of eyewitnesses still differed from each other, they had to be treated with caution.

The site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite

Today you can see many new trees at the site of the Tunguska meteorite fall. According to experts, their active growth is caused by genetic mutations.

However, such mutations are never found in areas where meteorites fall, which leads to certain thoughts. Some scientists suggest that the fall of the Tunguska meteorite caused a powerful electromagnetic field.

Today you can still see fallen rows of trees lying in the same direction. Their scorched trunks serve as a vivid reminder of an unusual disaster.

Photos from the site of the Tunguska meteorite fall

Not long ago, scientists again began to actively explore the site of the Tunguska meteorite fall. They still had more questions than answers. An interesting fact is that the place where the meteorite fell resembles the shape of a bird or butterfly.

Where did the Tunguska meteorite actually fall?

If we assume that a certain cosmic body actually fell to the earth, then a huge crater should have formed on its surface. But no one has been able to discover it so far.

Scientists who adhere to the official version believe that the space object most likely exploded in the air, after which its small parts scattered hundreds of kilometers.

That is why there are no traces of a meteorite at the epicenter of the explosion.

8 km from the explosion site is Lake Cheko, the depth of which reaches 50 m. Some foreign geologists have put forward the version that the lake appeared after the fall of the Tunguska meteorite.

In this regard, a group of Russian geologists took particles of lake sediments for examination and found out that Cheko’s age is almost 300 years, and maybe more.

The comet burned up before falling

A number of scientists suggest that the comet could have burned up in the atmosphere, since it consisted of ice and space dirt. The explosion occurred at an altitude of about 5 km above the earth's surface.

But here everything is not so smooth. The fact is that scientists were able to discover perfectly preserved remains of comet mud and water in peat.

Black and white

The famous Russian writer and journalist Andrei Tyunyaev is a supporter of the existence of black and white holes.

Black holes absorb any objects that are near them, and then transform them into space. In turn, white holes have the ability to form this matter. This creates a kind of cycle.

It follows from this that the Tunguska meteorite could be the result of the activity of a white hole, which could have formed not far from or will appear from the bowels of our planet.

It is worth noting that white holes are still too poorly studied, and many scientists do not believe in their existence at all.

Damn cemetery

Physicists also contributed to the study of the Tunguska meteorite. And it all started with one interesting and at the same time frightening story that occurred approximately 30 years after the disaster.

An interesting fact is that not far from the Tunguska phenomenon there is an anomalous zone called the Devil's Cemetery.

So, one day local shepherds lost several cows, which they were driving to the river for watering. Noticing the loss, they went in search of the animals. They soon discovered a deserted area, devoid of any vegetation.

It was there that the shepherds saw torn cows and many dead birds. The dogs began to bark frantically and eventually ran away.

After this, the men took the cows to use their meat. However, the beef turned out to be inedible. If you believe this, the shepherds and dogs died from an unknown disease.

The site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite was explored by many different expeditions. Four of them went missing, and the rest allegedly died after visiting the Devil's Cemetery.

According to local residents, at night in the area of ​​the Tunguska phenomenon you can see unusual lights and hear someone’s screams.

Tunguska meteorite and UFO

Speaking about the Tunguska meteorite, it is worth mentioning one more version, despite its absurdity. According to science fiction writer Kazantsev, the cause of the explosion was an alien ship that crashed above the earth.

To all this, Kazantsev adds that the aliens allegedly deliberately sent their ship to the taiga, and not to a populated area, in order to avoid the loss of life.

How can we not remember the mysterious one about which lately especially they talk a lot.

Kazantsev also placed special emphasis on the fact that the Tunguska explosion occurred in the air. In principle, scientists confirm this idea.

After medical examination local residents, doctors did not record a single case of radiation sickness, which spoke in favor of an air explosion.

Conclusion

Since researchers have still not been able to come to a consensus regarding the Tunguska meteorite, this has led to the emergence of many theories.

Today there are more than a hundred of them. There is even a version according to which the culprit of the Tunguska explosion is someone who conducted unique experiments with electricity. However, it is not yet possible to reliably confirm this version.

Still Tunguska cosmic body is of keen interest to scientists all over the world. Perhaps in the future, thanks to new discoveries and modern technology, we will be able to get to the bottom of the truth and find out what happened near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 17, 1908.

Today, the Tunguska meteorite is widely represented in culture, which is generally not surprising, given the human penchant for various riddles and secrets. He is mentioned in films computer games and various music videos.

Now you know everything you need about the Tunguska meteorite. If you liked this article, share it on social networks and subscribe to the site. It's always interesting with us!

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The morning of June 30, 1908 was not entirely ordinary. At about seven o'clock in the morning the sky over Siberia split in two and became unbearably hot, like in an oven. Then a strong shock wave passed and it seemed as if stones were falling on their heads.

After this, the magnetic storm lasted for 5 hours, and in the next three days, unusual light phenomena were observed over the entire Earth. But this, contrary to the first hypotheses, was not the end of the world. The described event was called the Tunguska meteorite. However, scientists and non-scientists are still arguing about what actually fell to Earth in the area of ​​the Podkamennaya Tunguska River.

Meteorite

The first serious version of what happened was the collision of a meteorite with the Earth. It is noteworthy that it was put forward only in the 20s: until then, the fall of a cosmic body into Siberia did not attract public attention. The meteorite hypothesis is supported by the fact that trees were felled over an area of ​​two thousand square kilometers. Moreover, at the epicenter of the explosion, the trees remained standing. Substances have also been discovered whose origin may well be cosmic. However, the first expeditions led by Leonid Kulik did not find the crater, which would inevitably have been formed by the fall of a meteorite.
Modern Italian scientists came to Kulik’s aid to confirm his theory about the meteorite. They discovered that Lake Cheko, located eight kilometers from the supposed epicenter of the explosion, may well be the desired crater. This is evidenced by its cone-shaped shape, which is not typical for Siberian lakes. The Italians, having drilled the bottom of the lake, allegedly even found the remains of a cosmic body ten meters below it.

Comet

The absence of not only a crater, but even a significant concentration of the substances that make up meteorites, gave rise to the theory that the space object that caused the explosion and anomalous atmospheric phenomena is a comet. Unlike a meteorite, it itself consists largely of ice, and its core is easily destroyed, which is what happened from a collision with dense layers of the earth’s atmosphere. This hypothesis explains both the absence of traces of the fall and the enormous effect produced by the collision. In addition, almost half of the cosmic bodies that cross the trajectory of the Earth and theoretically could crash into it are comet nuclei, and therefore the probability of the cometary origin of the Tunguska “meteorite” is quite high.

A specific comet is even named - either Encke-Backlund or Halley.

Dust cloud

The third version, even a whole group of versions: what fell into the swamps of Podkamennaya Tunguska was not a meteorite, not a comet, but a cloud of dust brought by some cosmic body, the same comet, for example. The body itself happily passed the Earth, but the dust was less fortunate, and it entered the atmosphere as a single mass. This explains the strange noctilucent clouds observed from June 30 to July 2 in many parts of the planet.
Another version of this version is that it was not dust that flew to the Earth, but the Earth itself flew into a cluster of some substance.

Antimatter

It is known that most of the cosmic objects in the observable part of the Universe consist of particles, but there are also those that consist of antiparticles. Russian physicist Boris Konstantinov proved that antimatter comets exist. And on June 30, 1908, a small piece of such antimatter collided with matter, that is, the Siberian taiga (or the atmosphere above it). As a result, energy was released that felled the forest. And matter and antimatter themselves annihilated, that is, they destroyed each other without a trace.

Black hole

The events described could have been produced not by a small fragment of antimatter, but by a small black hole passing through the Earth. It entered the planet through Siberia and exited somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean - therefore there is no evidence of a second explosion similar to the Tunguska. However, the black hole theory did not gain popularity: physicists’ calculations showed that the consequences of a collision with a miniature black hole passing through the Earth at high speed should have been completely different.

Mosquitoes

The “complex amateur expedition”, which repeatedly went to the taiga to look for traces of the Tunguska phenomenon among the swamps, once suffered so much from blood-sucking insects that it came to the conclusion: on June 30, 1908, a strong thermal explosion occurred due to the fact that in the interfluve of the Lena and Podkamennaya Tunguska a large cloud of... mosquitoes had gathered, about 5 cubic kilometers in size. That is why there were no traces of the detonated substance.

Aliens

The seventh version is associated with unlucky aliens. Their spaceship, for as yet unclear reasons, began to suffer disaster, and the alien astronauts, unable to control control, crashed into the taiga. Or - other supporters of this version believe - they did not fall, but maneuvered, and their orbital module collided with the Earth. It is difficult to say whether the landing was successful. The only thing that is known is the name of the alien ship: "Black Prince".
There is a hypothesis that aliens dropped three containers with a message to people, and we will be able to find them when we are ready. In this case, it is significant that the containers were dropped on Russian territory.

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

After the light phenomena over the deserted taiga there was a sound powerful explosion at an altitude of 7-10 kilometers. The energy of the explosion ranged from 10 to 40 megatons in TNT equivalent, which is comparable to the energy of two thousand simultaneously exploded nuclear bombs, similar to the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
The disaster was witnessed by residents of the small trading post of Vanavara (now the village of Vanavara) and those few Evenki nomads who were hunting near the epicenter of the explosion.

In a matter of seconds, a forest within a radius of about 40 kilometers was torn down by a blast wave, animals were destroyed, and people were injured. At the same time, under the influence of light radiation, the taiga flared up tens of kilometers around. A complete fall of trees occurred over an area of ​​more than 2,000 square kilometers.
In many villages, shaking of the soil and buildings was felt, window glass was breaking, and household utensils were falling from 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.

In the first 24 hours after the disaster, in almost the entire northern hemisphere - from Bordeaux to Tashkent, from the shores of the Atlantic to Krasnoyarsk - there was twilight of unusual brightness and color, night glow of the sky, bright silvery clouds, daytime optical effects - halos and crowns around the sun. The glow from the sky was so strong that many residents could not sleep. The clouds, which 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 towns one could freely read the small print newspaper at night, and in Greenwich a photograph of the seaport was received at midnight. This phenomenon continued for several more nights.
The disaster caused fluctuations magnetic field, recorded in Irkutsk and the German city of Kiel. The magnetic storm resembled in its parameters the disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field observed after high-altitude nuclear explosions.

In 1927, the pioneer researcher of the Tunguska disaster, Leonid Kulik, suggested that a large iron meteorite fell in Central Siberia. In the same year, he examined the scene of the event. A radial forest fall was discovered around the epicenter within a radius of up to 15-30 kilometers. The forest turned out to be felled like a fan from the center, and in the center some of the trees remained standing, but without branches. The meteorite was never found.
The comet hypothesis was first put forward by the English meteorologist Francis Whipple in 1934; it was subsequently thoroughly developed by the Soviet astrophysicist, academician Vasily Fesenkov.
In 1928-1930, the USSR Academy of Sciences conducted two more expeditions under the leadership of Kulik, and in 1938-1939, aerial photography of the central part of the area of ​​​​the fallen forest was carried out.
Since 1958, the study of the epicenter area was resumed, and the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences conducted three expeditions under the leadership of the Soviet scientist Kirill Florensky. At the same time, research was begun by amateur enthusiasts united in the so-called complex amateur expedition (CEA).
Scientists are faced with the main mystery of the Tunguska meteorite - there was clearly a powerful explosion above the taiga, which felled a forest over a huge area, but what caused it left no traces.

The Tunguska disaster is one of the most mysterious phenomena of the twentieth century.

There are more than a hundred versions. At the same time, perhaps no meteorite fell. In addition to the version about the fall of a meteorite, there were hypotheses that the Tunguska explosion was associated with giant ball lightning, a black hole that entered the Earth, an explosion natural gas from a tectonic crack, a collision of the Earth with a mass of antimatter, a laser signal from an alien civilization, or a failed experiment by physicist Nikola Tesla. One of the most exotic hypotheses is the crash of an alien spaceship.
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 crash site of the Tunguska meteorite came to the conclusion that they belonged to a meteorite from the class of carbonaceous chondrites, and not a comet.

Meanwhile, Phil Bland, an employee of the Australian Curtin University, presented two arguments calling into question the connection of the samples with 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, meaning the stones found could have fallen to Earth earlier or later than the famous explosion.

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

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources