Tunguska meteorite. History of the disaster. In what year and where did the Tunguska meteorite fall?

Almost everyone has heard about the Tunguska meteorite, but its mystery has not yet been solved. Today, most people know that in 1908, on June 30 in the Siberian taiga...

Almost everyone has heard about the Tunguska meteorite, but its mystery has not yet been solved. Today, most people know that in 1908, on June 30, a huge meteorite fell in the Siberian taiga. But modern analysis This event led to the emergence of many other hypotheses of the disaster that occurred. It's about about an explosion of terrifying force that happened at the beginning of the twentieth century, which shook the outback of the Russian North in the early morning of a summer day.

1. The charm of the early calm morning of June 30, 1908 in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River was broken within a radius of 45 km from the epicenter by an unexpected explosion of unprecedented power. In the explosion, millions of trees were uprooted, hellish heat bound the earth, and dry forest and moss burst into flames. An earthquake was felt 1000 km away. The sounds of the explosion were heard at a distance of 1200 km. The air wave caused by the explosion was recorded by almost all weather stations in the world.

2 An interesting fact is that accelerated growth of trees was discovered at the epicenter of the explosion. According to some, for many decades the rich vegetation in the area of the explosion turned into a dead forest. It is believed that the explosion energy Tunguska meteorite was 40 megatons of TNT equivalent (this is also a scientific fact that confirms the presence of a radiation release during the explosion.

3. The first researchers appeared at the site of the explosion only in 1927-1939. The expeditions were presented with a picture horrifying in its destructiveness: a continuous flooring of centuries-old trees, “needles” of charred trunks pierced the sky, the roots of all the fallen trees were turned in one direction. It was at the center of the explosion that scientists looked for traces of a celestial alien, but fragments of the Tunguska meteorite were never found.

4. In 1988, members of another expedition discovered strange metal rods near Vanavara. A new hypothesis has emerged that some highly developed space civilization was trying to save our planet from a collision with a huge comet. But the attack of aliens trying to split the comet was not successful and some parts of the comet still ended up on Earth. The earthlings were saved, but the alien ship crashed and had to be repaired on the surface of the Earth. Then the alien ship safely left our planet, and the failed blocks were left at the repair site. Behind for a long time research and search for parts of the Tunguska meteorite, 12 conical holes were found, but since no one studied them, the depth of the holes is unknown and there are no versions about the reasons for their occurrence.

5. In 2006, a new discovery at the site of the Tunguska meteorite explosion shocked scientific world. Quartz stones with mysterious writings were found there. According to scientists, mysterious signs were applied to the stone using an unknown technogenic method, presumably using plasma. A more detailed analysis of the stones confirmed the version that the cobblestones contain an admixture of cosmic substances that cannot be obtained on Earth, and therefore are artifacts. According to the hypothesis of the Russian scientist Lavbin, quartz stones are particles of an information container sent to Earth by a highly developed extraterrestrial civilization, which exploded due to problems with landing. This conclusion was based on findings that researchers were able to find in the wilds of the Siberian taiga at the site of the Tunguska disaster.

But despite a large number of hypotheses put forward, none of them received their actual confirmation, so the mystery of the Tunguska meteorite remains unsolved.

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. The total area of the fallen forest was 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 into 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 sound swipe. I was thrown three fathoms off the porch. After the blow there was such a knock, as if stones were falling from the sky or guns were firing, the ground 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.”
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 phenomenon nature. 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 strongly (it was impossible to look at) body glowing with a white, bluish light, moving for 10 minutes from top to bottom . The body was presented in the form of a “pipe,” that is, cylindrical. The sky was cloudless, only not high above the horizon; in the same direction in which the luminous body was observed, a small dark cloud was noticeable. It was hot and dry. Approaching the ground (forest), the shiny body seemed to blur, and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke formed and an extremely strong knock (not thunder) was heard, as if from large falling stones or cannon fire. All the buildings shook. At the same time, a flame of an indeterminate shape began to burst out of the cloud. All the residents of the village ran into 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. Interestingly, similar atmospheric anomalies began in 1908, long before the Tunguska explosion: unusual glows, flashes of light and colored lightning were observed above North America and the Atlantic, over Europe and Russia 3 months before the Tunguska explosion.

Later, at the epicenter of the explosion, increased growth of trees began, 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 into this phenomenon began only in the 20s of the last century. Crash site celestial body investigated 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. The researchers did not find a characteristic meteor crater, although later, over many years of searching 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 of researchers recognize 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 no crater. The trees were toppled 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?

Tunguska meteorite - a hypothetical body, probably of cometary origin, which allegedly caused an air explosion that occurred in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 17, 1908 at 7:14.5 ± 0.8 minutes local time. The power of the explosion is estimated at 40-50 megatons, which corresponds to the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb.
Story
On June 30, 1908, a giant fireball flew over the vast territory of Central Siberia in the area between the Lower Tunguska and Lena rivers. The flight ended with an explosion at an altitude of 7-10 km above an uninhabited taiga region. The blast wave was recorded by observatories around the world, including in the Western Hemisphere. As a result of the explosion, trees were knocked down over an area of more than 2,000 km², window glass houses were knocked out several hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. For several days, intense sky glow and luminous clouds were observed from the Atlantic to central Siberia. The blast wave destroyed a forest within a radius of 40 kilometers, killed animals, and injured people. Due to a powerful flash of light and a stream of hot gases, a forest fire broke out, completing the devastation of the area. Over a vast area, starting from the Yenisei River and ending Atlantic coast Europe, for several nights in a row, light phenomena of an unprecedented scale and completely unusual were observed, which went down in history under the name “bright nights of the summer of 1908.”
Several research expeditions were sent to the disaster area, starting with the 1927 expedition led by L. A. Kulik. The material of the hypothetical Tunguska meteorite was not found in significant quantities, but microscopic silicate and magnetite balls were discovered, as well as elevated levels of some elements, indicating a possible cosmic origin of the substance. Scientists have put forward many hypotheses about the explosion. Now there are about 100 of them. Adherents of the first believe that a giant meteorite fell to Earth. Beginning in 1927, the first Soviet scientific expeditions searched for traces of it in the area of the explosion. However, the usual meteor crater was not at the scene. Subsequent expeditions noticed that the area of fallen forest had a characteristic “butterfly” shape, directed from east-southeast to west-northwest. A study of this area 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 kilometers.
Astronomer V. Fesenkov put forward a version of the collision of the Earth with a comet. According to another version, it was a body that had high kinetic energy, had low density, low strength and high volatility, which led to its rapid destruction and evaporation as a result of sharp braking in the lower dense layers of the atmosphere.
Tunguska meteorite: facts and hypotheses
IN earth's atmosphere About once a year, a miniature Tunguska disaster occurs - an explosion of an asteroid or comet with a power approximately equal to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
June 30, 1908 at about 7 a.m. local time over the territory Eastern Siberia in the area between the Lena and Podkamennaya Tunguska rivers, a fiery object flared up like the sun and flew several hundred kilometers. Due to the powerful light flash of the Tunguska explosion and the flow of hot gases, a forest fire broke out, completing the devastation of the area. In a vast space bounded on the east by the Yenisei, on the south by the Tashkent-Stavropol-Sevastopol-northern Italy-Bordeaux line, on the west by the Atlantic coast of Europe, unprecedented in scale and completely unusual light phenomena unfolded, which went down in history as “light nights of the summer of 1908." The clouds that formed at an altitude of about 80 km intensely reflected the sun's rays, thereby creating the effect of bright nights even where there were Haven't seen it before. Throughout this gigantic territory, on the evening of June 30, night practically did not fall: the entire sky was glowing. This phenomenon continued for several nights. A space hurricane turned the rich taiga into a dead forest cemetery for many years. A study of the consequences of the disaster showed that the explosion energy amounted to 10-40 megatons of TNT equivalent, which is comparable to the energy of two thousand simultaneously detonated nuclear bombs, similar to the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Later, increased tree growth was discovered at the center of the explosion, indicating a radiation release. In the history of mankind, in terms of the scale of observed phenomena, it is difficult to find a more grandiose and mysterious event than the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. The first studies of this phenomenon began only in the 20s of the last century. Four expeditions, organized by the USSR Academy of Sciences and headed by mineralogist Leonid Kulik, were sent to the site where the object fell.
Hypotheses
More than a hundred different hypotheses have been expressed about what happened in the Tunguska taiga: from an explosion of swamp gas to the crash of an alien ship. It was also assumed that an iron or stone meteorite containing nickel iron could have fallen to Earth; icy comet core; unidentified flying object, starship; gigantic ball lightning; a meteorite from Mars, difficult to distinguish from terrestrial rocks. American physicists Albert Jackson and Michael Ryan stated that the Earth encountered a “black hole”; some researchers suggested that it was a fantastic laser beam or a piece of plasma torn off from the Sun; French astronomer and researcher of optical anomalies Felix de Roy 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 surface of the Earth.

Fall of a giant meteorite. It was his traces that, starting in 1927, were searched for in the area of the explosion by the first Soviet scientific expeditions led by Leonid Kulik. But the usual meteor crater was not at the scene of the incident. Expeditions discovered 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, but without branches. Subsequent expeditions noticed that the area of fallen forest had a characteristic “butterfly” shape, directed from east-southeast to west-northwest. The total area of fallen forest is about 2,200 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 an altitude of 5-10 km.
Earth collision with a comet. This hypothesis was put forward by Academician Vasily Fesenkov, an astronomer by profession. Even material evidence was found in the peat bogs - silicate and magnetite balls, but too little. This circumstance made it difficult to accept Fesenkov’s assumption as a hypothesis, since, according to reasonable calculations by employees of the Institute of Physics, the observed a blast wave could be produced by a charge equivalent to 20‑40 tons of TNT, which would produce a lot of fragments. According to another version, a body that had high kinetic energy, but had low density, low strength and high volatility, collided with the Earth, which led to its rapid destruction and evaporation as a result of sharp braking in the lower dense layers of the atmosphere. Such a body could be a comet, consisting of frozen water and gases in the form of “snow,” interspersed with refractory particles.
Alien ship. In 1988, members of the research expedition of the Siberian Public Foundation “Tunguska Space Phenomenon”, led by corresponding member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts Yuri Lavbin, discovered metal rods near Vanavara. Lavbin put forward his version of what happened - a huge comet was approaching our planet from space. This became known to some highly developed civilization space. Aliens to save the Earth from global catastrophe, sent out their sentinel spaceship. He was supposed to split the comet. But the attack of the most powerful cosmic body was not entirely successful for the ship. True, the comet's nucleus crumbled into several fragments. Some of them fell on Earth, and most of them passed by our planet. The earthlings were saved, but one of the fragments damaged the attacking alien ship, and it made an emergency landing on Earth. Subsequently, the ship's crew repaired their car and safely left our planet, leaving on it failed blocks, the remains of which were found by the expedition to the site of the disaster. Over many years of searching for the debris of the space alien, 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. However, recently, for the first time, researchers thought about the origin of the holes and the pattern of tree collapse in the area of the cataclysm. According to all known theories and practice itself, fallen trunks should lie in parallel rows. And here they are clearly unscientific. This means that the explosion was not classical, but something completely unknown to science. All these facts allowed geophysicists to reasonably assume that a thorough study conical holes in the ground will shed light on the Siberian secret. Some scientists have already begun to express the idea of the earthly origin of the phenomenon. In 2006, according to the president of the Tunguska Space Phenomenon Foundation, 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 researchers, strange signs are applied to the surface of quartz in a man-made manner, presumably through the influence of plasma. 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. Research has confirmed that the cobblestones are artifacts: many of them are “joined” layers of plates, each of which contains signs of an unknown alphabet. According to Lavbin’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.

Ice comet. The latest hypothesis is from 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 crash site, Leonid Kulik. At the scene of the incident, Kulik found a substance in the form of ice covered with peat, but did not give it special significance, because I was looking for something completely different. However, this compressed ice with flammable gases frozen into it, found 20 years after the explosion, is not a sign of permafrost, as was commonly believed, but proof that the ice comet theory is correct, the researcher believes. For a comet that was scattered into many pieces after 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 become the only true and last one.
Thousands of researchers are trying to understand what happened on June 30, 1908 in the Siberian taiga. To the area Tunguska disaster In addition to Russian expeditions, international expeditions are regularly sent. On October 9, 1995, by decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Tungussky State Nature Reserve was established with total area in 296,562 hectares. Its territory is unique. It stands out among other reserves and wildlife sanctuaries in the world in that it is the only area on the globe that provides the opportunity to directly study environmental consequences space disasters. In the Tunguska Nature Reserve, due to the uniqueness of the 1908 event, as an exception, limited tourist activities are allowed for the purpose of environmental education of the population, familiarization with the beautiful natural sites of the reserve, the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. There are three environmental education routes. Two of them are by water, along the picturesque rivers Kimchu and Khushma, the third is on foot along the “Kulik trail” - the famous route of the discoverer of the site of the Tunguska meteorite disaster.

In search of the Tunguska meteorite
Many people tried to find the Tunguska meteorite. The first such attempt was made by engineer Vyacheslav Shishkov, who later became a famous writer, author of the famous “Gloomy River”. In 1911, a geodetic expedition led by him discovered colossal forest falls near the Tetere River. Leonid Kulik, who went with expeditions to the fallout area three times, began a targeted search for the meteorite. In 1927, he conducted a general reconnaissance, discovered many craters, and a year later returned with a large expedition. During the summer, topographical surveys of the surrounding area, filming of fallen trees were carried out, and an attempt was made to pump water out of the craters. homemade pump. However, no traces of the meteorite were found.
Kulik's third expedition, which took place in 1929 and 1930, was the largest and equipped with drilling equipment. They opened one of the largest craters, at the bottom of which a stump was discovered. But it turned out to be “older” than the Tunguska disaster. Consequently, the craters were not of meteorite, but of thermokarst origin. The Tunguska cosmic body and its fragments disappeared without a trace. Kulik believed that the Tunguska meteorite was iron. He did not even deign to examine the large meteorite-like stone that was discovered by expedition member Konstantin Yankovsky. Attempts to find the “Yankovsky stone”, made thirty years later, were unsuccessful.
In 1939, Kulik's last expedition took place, and again it did not bring significant results. Kulik was going to organize another trip to the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell in 1941, but the Great Patriotic War prevented it.
In 1958, a group led by geochemist Kirill Florensky went to the Podkamennaya Tunguska region. The expedition examined a vast logging area and compiled a map of it. However, not a single meteorite crater was discovered. One of the main tasks assigned to Florensky’s group was the detection of finely scattered meteorite matter, but the searches did not produce results. But a completely new phenomenon was recorded - an abnormally rapid growth of trees. All these circumstances forced some members of the expedition to come to the conclusion that the meteorite exploded not upon contact with the Earth, but at some height above the surface. Such a conclusion was in clear contradiction with the data of “classical” meteoritics: all previously observed meteorites either burned up in the atmosphere, or split into pieces, falling out in separate pieces, or penetrated into the thickness of the earth’s crust, forming craters.
In the late 1950s, the KSE - Complex Amateur Expedition to Study the Tunguska Meteorite - was formed in the student city of Tomsk. The first CSE trip to the fallout zone took place in 1959. The main goal that the members of the expedition set for themselves was to “awaken the interest of wide circles of the public in one of the world’s mysteries, the solution of which can give a lot to humanity.” A year later, KSE-2 began operating. It was unprecedented in number and consisted of more than seventy people. It is interesting that in parallel with KSE-2, a group of engineers from Sergei Korolev’s design bureau worked in the area of the Tunguska disaster. The future pilot-cosmonaut Georgy Grechko was also looking for a meteorite in its composition. The enthusiasm of the CSE members was constantly supported by the belief that the undertaken “general offensive” would in the very near future make it possible to reveal the nature of the mysterious meteorite, but even after thirty years of research, having collected colossal factual material, the members of the Complex Expedition were unable to unambiguously answer an essentially simple question: What exactly exploded over Podkamennaya Tunguska?
There is no consensus on the question “What was that?” not yet. The absence of traces of the meteorite gave rise to many exotic hypotheses. Initially, the Tunguska cosmic body was considered an ordinary, albeit very large, iron meteorite that fell to the surface of the Earth in the form of one or more fragments. In the post-war years, the “comet” hypothesis gained great popularity. This version still has many supporters. In the 1950s, American astronomer Fred Whipple showed that many of the contradictions associated with explaining the nature of the Tunguska meteorite are eliminated if we consider the comet's nucleus as a monolithic body consisting of ices of methane, ammonia and solid carbon dioxide mixed with snow. In 1961, geochemist Alexey Zolotov, who visited the fallout zone 12 times, put forward a hypothesis about the atomic nature of the Tunguska explosion. Despite the “crazy” component of this hypothesis, Zolotov even managed to defend his Ph.D. thesis based on it. The geochemist wrote: “The flight and explosion of the Tunguska cosmic body is an unusual, and possibly new, natural phenomenon still unknown to man.” The study of the fallout zone from the air made it possible in the late 1960s to say that the Tunguska meteorite made an inexplicable maneuver in the atmosphere during its fall - this supposedly confirms its artificial origin. Skeptics, however, point out that history has recorded numerous cases of the fall of rotating meteorites, arbitrarily changing their trajectory.
After the passage of a very large cosmic body through the air envelope of the Earth was recorded in 1972, a hypothesis arose that the Tunguska meteorite was the same fleeting guest. In 1977 it was published mathematical model, which describes the fall of the Tunguska meteorite and proves that it could well evaporate under the influence of heating in the atmosphere, but only under the condition that it consisted entirely of snow. It was shown that the main chemical elements of the Tunguska cosmic body were: sodium (up to 50%), zinc (20%), calcium (more than 10%), iron (7.5%) and potassium (5%). It is these elements, with the exception of zinc, that are most often observed in the spectra of comets. The results of the research and the data obtained, according to the authors of the study, allow us “to no longer assume, but to assert: yes, the Tunguska cosmic body was indeed the nucleus of a comet.”

Indicating the possible cosmic origin of the substance.

Epicenter coordinates

It was established that the explosion occurred in the air at a certain altitude (according to various estimates, 5 - 15 km) and was unlikely to be a point explosion, so we can only talk about the projection of the coordinates of a special point, called the epicenter. Different methods for determining the geographic coordinates of this special point (“epicenter”) of the explosion give slightly different results:

Author	Coordinates	Determination method
Kulik L. A.	60.901944 , 101.904444 / (G) (O)	Along the radial fall of trees
Astapovich I.S.	60.901944 , 101.904444 60°54′07″ n. w. 101°54′16″ E. d. / 60.901944° s. w. 101.904444° E. d.(G) (O)	According to the physical parameters of the explosion
Fast V. G.	60.885833 , 101.894444 / (G) (O)	By asymmetrical tree felling
Zolotov A.V.	60.886389 , 101.886389 60°53′11″ n. w. 101°53′11″ E. d. / 60.886389° N. w. 101.886389° E. d.(G) (O)
Boyarkina A.P.	60.895833 , 101.891667 60°53′45″ n. w. 101°53′30″ E. d. / 60.895833° s. w. 101.891667° E. d.(G) (O)
Ilyin A. G., Zenkin G. M.	60.868889 , 101.9175 60°52′08″ n. w. 101°55′03″ E. d. / 60.868889° s. w. 101.9175° E. d.(G) (O)	For burn damage to trees

Course of events

It is noted that three days before the event, starting on June 27, 1908, unusual atmospheric phenomena began to be observed in Europe, the European part of Russia and Western Siberia: noctilucent clouds, bright twilight, solar halos. British astronomer William Denning wrote that on the night of June 30 the sky over Bristol was so bright that the stars were practically invisible; the entire northern part of the sky had a red tint, and the eastern part had a green tint.

At 7:14 a.m. local time, the body exploded over the Southern Swamp near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River; the force of the explosion, according to some estimates, reached 40-50 megatons of TNT equivalent.

Eyewitness observations

One of the most famous eyewitness accounts is the message of Semyon Semenov, a resident of the Vanavara trading post, located 70 km southeast of the epicenter of the explosion:

As soon as I swung my ax to hit the hoop on the tub, 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 three fathoms off the porch. After the blow there was such a knock, as if stones were falling from the sky or guns were firing, the ground 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, 30 km from it to the southeast, on the banks of the Avarkitta River, was the tent of the Evenk brothers Chuchanchi and Chekaren Shanyagir:

Our tent then stood on the bank of Avarkitta. Before sunrise, Chekaren and I came from the Dilyushma River, where we visited Ivan and Akulina. We fell fast asleep. Suddenly we both woke up at once - someone was pushing us. We heard a whistle and smelled 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. Suddenly someone pushed me again, so hard that I hit my head on a crazy pole and then fell onto the hot coals in the fireplace. I was afraid. Chekaren also got scared and grabbed the pole. We started shouting for father, mother, brother, but no one answered. There was some noise behind the tent; you 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. I was firmly pressed down by the poles, but my head was not covered, because the ellune had lifted up. Then I saw a terrible miracle: the forests were falling, the pine needles on them were burning, the dead wood on the ground was burning, the reindeer moss was burning. 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!

Testimony of the brothers Chuchanchi and Chekaren

Consequences of the event

The explosion on Tunguska was heard 800 km from the epicenter, the blast wave felled a forest over an area of 2,100 km², and the windows of some houses were broken within a radius of 200 km; the seismic wave was recorded by seismographic stations in Irkutsk, Tashkent, Tbilisi and Jena.

Soon after the explosion, a magnetic storm began that lasted 5 hours.

Unusual atmospheric lighting effects, preceding the explosion, reached a maximum on July 1, after which they began to decline (individual traces of them persisted until the end of July).

First publications about the event

The first report about the event that occurred near Tunguska was published in the newspaper “Sibirskaya Zhizn” dated June 30 (July 12), 1908:

Around 8 o'clock in the morning, several fathoms from the canvas railway, near the Filimonovo crossing, not reaching 11 versts to Kansk, according to stories, a huge meteorite fell... Passengers of the train approaching the crossing at the time of the meteorite fall were struck by an extraordinary roar; the train was stopped by the driver, and the public poured to the place where the distant wanderer fell. But she was not able to examine the meteorite closer, since it was red-hot... almost the entire meteorite crashed into the ground - only its top sticks out...

It is clearly evident that the content of this note is extremely far from what actually happened, however, this message went down in history, since it was it that prompted L.A. Kulik to go in search of the meteorite, which he then still considered “Filimonovsky”.

The newspaper “Siberia” dated July 2 (15), 1908, provided a more factual description (author S. Kulesh):

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 strongly (it was impossible to look at) body glowing with a white, bluish light, moving for 10 minutes from top to bottom . The body was presented in the form of a “pipe,” that is, cylindrical. The sky was cloudless, only not high above the horizon; in the same direction in which the luminous body was observed, a small dark cloud was noticeable. It was hot and dry. Approaching the ground (forest), the shiny body seemed to blur, and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke formed and an extremely strong knock (not thunder) was heard, as if from large falling stones or cannon fire. All the buildings shook. At the same time, flames of an indeterminate shape began to burst out of the cloud.

All the residents of the village ran into the streets in panic, the women were crying, everyone thought that the end of the world was coming.

However, no one showed widespread interest in the fall of an extraterrestrial body at that time. Scientific research The Tunguska phenomenon began only in the 1920s.

Kulik's expeditions

Despite the absence of a crater, Kulik remained a supporter of the hypothesis about the meteorite nature of the phenomenon (although he was forced to abandon the idea of the fall of a single meteorite significant mass in favor of the idea of its possible destruction during a fall). He discovered thermokarst pits, which he mistakenly mistook for small meteorite craters.

During his expeditions, Kulik tried to find the remains of the meteorite, organized aerial photography of the crash site (in 1938, over an area of 250 km²), and collected information about the meteorite fall from witnesses to the incident.

A new expedition being prepared by L.A. Kulik to the site of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite in 1941 did not take place due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. The results of L. A. Kulik’s many years of work on studying the problem of the Tunguska meteorite were summed up in 1949 by a student of L. A. Kulik, who died in the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War, and a participant in his expeditions E.L. Krinov in the book “Tunguska meteorite” published by him.

Nature of the phenomenon

To date, a generally accepted hypothesis that explains all the essential features of the phenomenon has not been proposed. At the same time, the proposed explanations are very numerous and varied: for example, an employee of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences I. Zotkin published in 1970 in the journal Nature an article “Guide to help compilers of hypotheses related to the fall of the Tunguska meteorite,” where he described seventy seven theories about his fall known as of January 1, 1969. At the same time, he classified hypotheses into the following types:

The initial explanation of the phenomenon - the fall of a meteorite of significant mass (presumably iron), or a swarm of meteorites - quickly began to raise doubts among experts due to the fact that the remains of the meteorite could not be found, despite significant efforts made to search for them.

In the early 1930s, British astronomer and meteorologist Francis Whipple suggested that the Tunguska events were associated with the fall of a comet nucleus (or a fragment thereof) to Earth. A similar hypothesis was proposed by geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, who suggested that the Tunguska body was a relatively loose clump of cosmic dust. This explanation was later accepted by quite a large number of astronomers. Calculations showed that to explain the observed destruction, the celestial body had to have a mass of about 5 million tons. The cometary material is a very loose structure consisting primarily of ice; and almost completely disintegrated and burned upon entry into the atmosphere. It has been suggested that the Tunguska meteoroid belongs to the β-Taurid meteor shower, associated with Comet Encke.

Attempts were also made to refine the meteorite hypothesis. A number of astronomers indicate that the comet would have collapsed high in the atmosphere, so only a rocky asteroid could act as the Tunguska meteoroid. In their opinion, its substance was sprayed into the air and was carried away by the wind. In particular, G.I. Petrov, having considered the problem of deceleration of bodies in an atmosphere with low mass density, identified a new, explosive form of entry into the atmosphere of a space object, which, unlike the case of ordinary meteorites, does not give visible traces of a disintegrated body. Astronomer Igor Astapovich suggested that the Tunguska phenomenon can be explained by the ricochet of a large meteorite from dense layers of the atmosphere.

In 1945, Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev, based on the similarity of eyewitness accounts of the Tunguska events and the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, suggested that the available data indicate not the natural, but the artificial nature of the event: he suggested that the “Tunguska meteorite” was spaceship extraterrestrial civilization that crashed in the Siberian taiga.

The natural reaction of the scientific community was the complete rejection of such a hypothesis. In 1951, the journal “Science and Life” published an article devoted to the analysis and destruction of Kazantsev’s assumption, the authors of which were the most prominent astronomers and meteoritics specialists. The article stated that it was the meteorite hypothesis and only it that was correct, and that the crater from the meteorite would soon be discovered:

Currently, the most plausible place for a meteorite to fall (explode) is considered to be the one mentioned above. southern part depressions, the so-called “Southern Swamp”. The roots of fallen trees are also directed towards this swamp, which show that the blast wave spread from here. There is no doubt that at the first moment after the meteorite fell, a crater-shaped depression formed in the place of the “Southern Swamp”. It is quite possible that the crater formed after the explosion was relatively small and was soon, probably even in the first summer, flooded with water. In subsequent years, it was covered with silt, covered with a layer of moss, filled with peat hummocks and partly overgrown with bushes.

About the Tunguska meteorite // Science and life. - 1951. - No. 9. - P. 20.

However, the first post-war scientific expedition to the site of the events, organized in 1958 by the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences, refuted the assumption that there was a meteorite crater anywhere near the site of the event. Scientists came to the conclusion that the Tunguska body must have exploded in the atmosphere one way or another, which ruled out the possibility that it was an ordinary meteorite.

In 1958, Gennady Plekhanov and Nikolai Vasiliev created the “Complex amateur expedition to study the Tunguska meteorite,” which later became the core of the Commission on Meteorites and Cosmic Dust of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The main goal of this organization was to resolve the issue of the natural or artificial nature of the Tunguska body. This organization managed to attract a significant number of specialists from all over the Soviet Union to the study of the Tunguska phenomenon.

In general, despite the rather fantastic nature of the hypothesis about the artificial origin of the Tunguska body, starting from the 1950s of the 20th century, it enjoyed quite serious support in the scientific community; Relatively large funds were allocated to attempts to confirm or refute it. The fact that this hypothesis was considered quite seriously can be judged by the fact that its supporters were able to raise sufficient doubts in the scientific community when, in the early 1960s, the issue of awarding the Lenin Prize to Kirill Florensky for the hypothesis about the cometary nature of Tunguska was discussed. meteorite - the prize was ultimately never awarded.

Other hypotheses

Other versions, including exotic ones: antimatter, nuclear explosion, collision with the Earth of a miniature black hole with traces in the Patomsky crater, alien accident spacecraft(put forward by the famous Soviet science fiction writer A. Kazantsev and developed by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in the story “Monday begins on Saturday”).

Display in culture

Literature

Stanislaw Lem in the novel “Astronauts” also used this hypothesis - in the novel the ship was a reconnaissance ship sent by the warlike inhabitants of Venus, who were preparing to destroy life on Earth and take it over, but did not carry out their plan due to global war and general destruction.

A representative of the Institute of Time, ..., stood in front of the time machine and explained its structure to the scientific community. The scientific community listened to him attentively. “The first experience, as you all know, was unsuccessful,” he said. - The kitten we sent ended up at the beginning of the twentieth century and exploded in the area of the Tunguska River, which marked the beginning of the legend of the Tunguska meteorite. Since then we have had no major failures. ...

In the second story (from the book A Million Adventures), two employees of the Time Institute return from 1908 and one of them claims that it was a simple comet nucleus. Also in Kir Bulychev’s book “The Secret of Urulgan” the Tunguska phenomenon appears before us in the form of a crashed alien spaceship.

In Vadim Panov’s series “The Secret City” (mainly in the volume “Pulpit of Wanderers”) the Tunguska phenomenon is associated with the launch and subsequent attempts to conceal the main human artifact and Source of magical energy - the Throne (Small Throne of Poseidon).

In Yuri Sbitnev’s story “Echo” (1986), the genre of which is Soviet time was defined as a “modern fairy tale”, one of the chapters is dedicated to the Tunguska diva. What is described in the story is based on the testimony of real people.

It is the central theme of Vladimir Sorokin's "Ice Trilogy", consisting of the novels "Bro's Path", "Ice" and "23000".

In the Ultimate Nightmare comic (Marvel Comics), the plot is directly related to the fall of the Tunguska meteorite.

The explosion of the Tunguska meteorite is also described in one of the novels in the series “The Adventures of Tomek Vilmovsky” by the Polish writer Alfred Shklyarsky.

The popularity of the topic among science fiction writers, especially beginners, led to the fact that in the 1980s, the Ural Pathfinder magazine, among the requirements for science fiction works proposed for publication, mentioned: “Works that reveal the secret of the Tunguska meteorite are not considered.”

Movies

In the series “The X-Files” there is an episode called “Tunguska” (season 4, episode 9, “Tunguska” 12/01/1996), which describes an alien invasion.

In the movie "Hellboy" Rasputin buys an obelisk made from the Tunguska meteorite stone from the Russian military for a ritual

Music

Metallica's video for the song All Nightmare Long tells the story of alien spores being found at the site of a meteorite explosion, with the help of which the Soviet Union seizes power over the world.

Mango-Mango in her song and video “Berkut” presented one of the versions of the Tunguska meteorite.

Computer games

In the game Crysis 2, it is mentioned that two scientists, Jacob Hargreave and Carl Ernest Rush, obtained samples of alien technology in Tunguska in 1919. The game takes place in 2023, and both of them are alive, and Hargreave made a fortune by studying and applying found nanotechnology, the limit of development of which is the main character’s costume.
The game Secret Files: Tunguska is built around a certain artifact that appeared as a result of a meteorite fall and allows you to control the consciousness of humanity.
Game Syberia II. At the very beginning of the introductory video, the train passes a place with coordinates 60.885833 , 101.894444 60°53′09″ n. w. 101°53′40″ E. d. / 60.885833° s. w. 101.894444° E. d.(G) (O), that is, through the epicenter of the explosion of the Tunguska meteorite according to Fast.

"Brazilian Tunguska" (1930)

There are reports of an event similar to the Tunguska disaster that occurred in Brazil on August 13, 1930.

Due to its similarity to the Tunguska meteorite, the Brazilian event was called the “Brazilian Tunguska”.

This event is practically unexplored, since it happened in an area difficult to reach for expeditions, and also because of the prevalence of banditry in this area.

Records from recorders at seismic stations have been preserved, showing a seismic shock.

Vitim meteorite (Russia, 2002)

Main article: Vitim meteorite

If the Tunguska meteorite had fallen 4 hours later (see the map “Approximate location of the explosion” at the beginning of this article), then, due to the rotation of the planet around the earth’s axis, Vyborg would have been completely destroyed and St. Petersburg very significantly damaged.

Literature

Rubtsov V. The Tunguska Mystery. - N.Y.: Springer, 2009. - 318 p. - ISBN 978-0-387-76573-0
Rubtsov V. The Tunguska Mystery. - N.Y.: Springer, 2012. - 328 p. - ISBN 978-1-4614-2925-8
Bronshten V. A. Tunguska meteorite: history of research. - M.: Selyanov A.D., 2000. - 312 p. - 1540 copies. - ISBN 5-901273-04-4
Gladysheva O. G. Tunguska disaster: Pieces of the puzzle. - St. Petersburg. : Nauka, 2011. - 183 p. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-02-025530-2
Zhuravlev V.K., Rodionov B.U. One hundred years of the Tunguska problem. New approaches: collection of articles. - M.: Binom, 2008. - 447 p.
Olkhovatov A. Yu. Tunguska phenomenon of 1908. - M.: Binom, 2008. - 422 p.
Olkhovatov A. Yu. Tunguska radiance. - M.: Binom, 2009. - 240 p.
Rubtsov V.V. Methodology of research programs and the problem of the Tunguska meteorite // The Tunguska phenomenon: at the crossroads of ideas. Second century of studying the Tunguska Event of 1908. - Novosibirsk: City Press Business LLC, 2012. - pp. 74-86. - ISBN 5-8124-0059-8.
Rubtsov V.V. Tunguska meteorite: on the way to oblivion // Earth and Universe. - 2012. - No. 4. - P. 80-89. - ISSN 0044-3948.

Notes

: It was visible over the vast territory of Eastern Siberia in the area between the Lena and Podkamennaya Tunguska rivers. The visibility zone of the car was about 600 kilometers.
: The explosion completely destroyed the forest over a vast area - an area of 2150 square kilometers (this roughly corresponds to the area of modern Moscow). The outbreak scorched forest over an area of 200 square kilometers and caused a huge forest fire.
Rubtsov, 1.
Denning W. F. Genial June // Nature. 1908. V. 78. N 2019. P. 221. Cited. by: Rubtsov, 1.
Rubtsov, 1-2.
Rubtsov, 2.
Rubtsov, 3.
Suslov I.M. Survey of eyewitnesses of the Tunguska disaster in 1926 // Problem of the Tunguska meteorite. Sat. articles. Tomsk: Tomsk University Publishing House, 1967. Issue. 2. pp. 21-30.
Rubtsov, 4.
Tunguska meteorite - 1908. Small bodies solar system . Archived
Tunguska meteorite . My Krasnoyarsk. People's Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on August 23, 2011. Retrieved September 16, 2009.
Rubtsov, 5.
A. I. Voitsekhovsky “What was that? The Mystery of Podkamennaya Tunguska" in the "Question Mark" series on the website of the electronic library "Librarian Tochka Ru"
- 1939
This book was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1952.
Rubtsov, 5-6.
Rubtsov, 6.
Academician V. G. Fesenkov, Chairman of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences; Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. A. Mikhailov, Chairman of the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Director of the Pulkovo Observatory; E. L. Krinov, scientific secretary of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences; K. P. Stanyukovich, Doctor of Technical Sciences; V. V. Fedynsky, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.
Vasiliev, N.V. Tunguska meteorite: a mystery remains // Earth and Universe. - 1989. - № 3.
Rubtsov, 7.
Rubtsov, 8.
[email protected]: NASA deprived the Tunguska guest of his secret
: English meteorologists could observe a rare atmospheric phenomenon in the sky - noctilucent clouds.
:Head of the Laboratory of Upper Atmosphere Physics, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Anatoly Semenov, in a conversation with a Pravda correspondent. Ru" regarded the assumption of his colleagues from Cornell University as very reliable.
Cheko. Evenki Autonomous Okrug, Russia
L. Gasperini, F. Alvisi, G. Biasini, E. Bonatti, G. Longo, M. Pipan, M. Ravaioli, R. Serra, (2007) A possible impact crater for the 1908 Tunguska Event. Terra Nova, Vol 19 (4), pp. 245-251
L.Gasperini, E.Bonatti, G.Longo, (2008) Lake Cheko and the Tunguska Event: impact or non-impact? Terra Nova, Vol 20 (2), pp.169-172.
Italian scientists claim that they have found the Tunguska meteorite // "Ogonyok", No. 25 (5234), 06/25/2012
Article “Tunguska meteorite and time: 101st HYPOTHESIS OF THE SECRET OF THE AGE”
D/f “Lord of the World. Nikola Tesla”, see the text of the film
The 1908 Tunguska catastrophe: An alternative explanation
Tunguska Miracle
Application of the anthropic principle to a radical solution to the Tunguska problem
Belkin A, Kuznetsov S. The Tunguska meteorite is... of terrestrial origin // "Evening Novosibirsk": article. - 2001. - No. 02.03.2001.
Belkin A, Kuznetsov S., Rodin R. Will the mystery of the origin of the Tunguska meteorite finally be solved? // "Evening Novosibirsk": article. - 2002. - No. 09.14.2002.
Strugatsky A. and B."Monday starts on Saturday." Story three. All sorts of fuss. Chapter 5.

On the thirtieth of June 1908, a monstrous thunder thundered over the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, which is located on the territory of the modern Krasnoyarsk Territory. Its consequences were recorded by seismic stations around the world. One of the few witnesses to the explosion describes it this way:

“I saw a flying hot ball with a fiery tail. After its flight, a blue stripe remained in the sky. When this fireball fell to the west of Mog, then soon, about 10 minutes later, I heard three shots, as if from a cannon. The shots came one after another, within one or two seconds. From where the meteorite fell, smoke came out, which did not last long” - from the collection “Eyewitness Reports of the Tunguska Meteorite of 1908”, V.G. Konenkin.

As a result of the explosion, trees were knocked down over an area of 2,000 square kilometers. For comparison, the area of modern St. Petersburg is approximately 1,500 square kilometers.

Was it a meteorite?

The name “Tunguska meteorite” itself should be considered very conditional. The fact is that there is still no clear opinion about what exactly happened in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. This happened largely because the first research expedition led by L.A. Kulika was sent to the explosion area only 19 years later, in 1927. At the supposed site of the fall, among thousands of fallen trees, no fragments of a cosmic body, no crater, or a significant amount of chemical traces of the fall of a celestial body were found big size.

In 2007, Italian scientists suggested that the place where the supposed object fell was Lake Cheko, at the bottom of which lies the debris. However, this version also found its opponents.

Research continues to this day, and even today scientists cannot accurately determine whether a meteorite, comet, or asteroid fragment fell to earth or whether it was a non-cosmic phenomenon. The lack of explanation on this issue continues to trouble people's minds. Professionals and amateurs who are not indifferent to the problem presented more than a hundred versions of what happened. Among them there are both scientifically based hypotheses and fantastic theories, up to the crash of an alien ship or the results of Nikola Tesla’s experiments. If this is ever solved, then it is possible that the very name “Tunguska meteorite” will become irrelevant.