Anome
Bibliomancer
- Joined
- May 23, 2002
- Messages
- 5,528
- Location
- Left, and to the Back
This week's New Scientist has a feature on Tunguska, and claims that today (30th June 2008) is the Centenary. Why haven't there been any celebrations planned?
Tunguska
- Thread starter Anonymous
- Start date
-
- Tags
- tunguska
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Long Beeb piece, recapitulates the history, then gives comment, updates
Fire in the sky: Tunguska at 100
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News
At 7:17am on 30 June 1908, an immense explosion tore through the forest of central Siberia.
............one theory proposes that the Tunguska object was a fragment of Comet Encke. This ball of ice and dust is responsible for a meteor shower called the Beta Taurids, which cascade into Earth's atmosphere in late June and July - the time of the Tunguska event.
The absence of any crater connected with the Tunguska event has left the door open for some outlandish alternatives to the meteorite theory. A lump of anti-matter, a colliding black hole and - inevitably - an exploding alien spaceship have all been proposed as the possible source of the blast.
But in 2007, Giuseppe Longo, from the University of Bologna, Italy, and his colleagues, suggested they might have found something Leonid Kulik had missed all those years ago.
Lake Cheko does not appear on any maps of the area made before 1908; it also happens to lie North-West-West of the epicentre, on the general path taken by the impactor as it plummeted to Earth.
To Dr Longo, a radar signal from beneath the lake is suggestive of a dense object, possibly part of the Tunguska meteorite, buried about 10m down. The team plans to conduct an expedition to the area in 2009, to investigate this possibility.
"We have no positive proof it is an impact crater, we have come to this conclusion [about Lake Cheko] through the negation of other hypotheses," Dr Longo told BBC News last year.
But other researchers, including Gareth Collins and Phil Bland of Imperial College London, cast doubt on the idea Lake Cheko has anything to do with the Tunguska event.
They point to trees older than 100 years which are still standing around the rim of the lake (and, they say, should have been levelled by the impact) and the unusual shape of the lake itself, which, the researchers argue, is inconsistent with an impact origin.
Rock search
One hundred years on, the Tunguska event remains a vibrant area for study, especially in Russia. Last week, researchers gathered in Moscow for a scientific conference arranged to coincide with the anniversary.
Topics on the agenda were the continuing search for pieces of the space rock, the comet vs asteroid debate and the relationship of the event to the Beta Taurid meteor shower.
Dr Longo and colleagues presented a new tree-fall map, which they say is suggestive of two separate objects exploding in the atmosphere over Tunguska on 30 June.
The conference also heard presentations on other historic and prehistoric cosmic impacts and current strategies for tackling an asteroid headed for Earth.
An asteroid on the order of one kilometre in diameter hits the Earth roughly once every 100,000 years.
Space rocks about 10m across - roughly the size of the Tunguska object - are thought to hit our planet about once every 3,000 years.
But Mark Bailey suspects they might be more frequent than that. He has investigated another event in 1930 known as the "Brazilian Tunguska".
This little-known event was apparently caused by three large meteorites in the upper reaches of the Amazon. The fires it caused continued uninterrupted for weeks and depopulated hundreds of kilometres of jungle.
And in June 2002, US military satellites detected an explosion in the Earth's atmosphere with the energy of 12 kilotonnes of explosive. The event has been attributed to an asteroid which remained undetected as it approached our planet and plummeted through the atmosphere.
'Nuclear winter'
The international Spaceguard survey programme has been working to identify the Near-Earth Objects larger than 1km - the class of object could cause a "nuclear winter" if one were to strike the planet, possibly threatening civilisation.
Objects the size of the one that caused the Tunguska impact are too small to be seen by present-day surveys.
But there is no guarantee the next object will explode over the sea or a sparsely populated wilderness. This begs an obvious question: how prepared are we for the next one?
Dr Richard Crowther is head of the United Nations Near Earth Object (Neo) programme. He told the BBC News website: "Tunguska reminds us that these impact events have occurred in the relatively recent past.
"The surveys suggest that objects of this size are numerous enough to anticipate similar events in the relatively near future."
Many observers are concerned by what they regard as a lack of action to counter the threat posed by near-Earth asteroids.
California-based space advocacy group the Planetary Society recently awarded an Atlanta-based aerospace company $50,000 (£25,000) to design a spacecraft which could rendezvous with and track the path of the asteroid 99942 Apophis.
In 2029, this 270m-wide chunk of cosmic debris will closely approach the Earth - so close, in fact, it will be visible with the naked eye.
If this primordial behemoth passes through a precise region in space, or "keyhole", several hundred kilometres wide during this pass, it will strike Earth in 2036.
The Planetary Society initiated its tagging mission because, it says, Earth-based observations might not be sufficient to rule out an impact in 2036.
There are several technologies that could be used currently to tackle an asteroid heading on a collision course with Earth. One proposal is to use nuclear weapons to completely vapourise the object.
Another is to use a spacecraft to "push" the asteroid off course. This would involve a craft either slowing down or speeding up the object to ensure that it misses its appointment with the Earth's surface.
If, for some reason, the asteroid is not spotted in time, or the deflection mission arrives at its target too late, it might be necessary to nudge the space rock just enough so that it strikes the ocean, or a remote, thinly populated area on Earth.
Dr Crowther, who is based at the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), comments that Neos "do not recognise national boundaries".
For this reason among others, he said, it was important that any policy framework established to counter the asteroid threat "should encourage nations to work together to share data, expertise and resources to assess and mitigate the risk of a future impact".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7470283.stm
Fire in the sky: Tunguska at 100
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News
At 7:17am on 30 June 1908, an immense explosion tore through the forest of central Siberia.
............one theory proposes that the Tunguska object was a fragment of Comet Encke. This ball of ice and dust is responsible for a meteor shower called the Beta Taurids, which cascade into Earth's atmosphere in late June and July - the time of the Tunguska event.
The absence of any crater connected with the Tunguska event has left the door open for some outlandish alternatives to the meteorite theory. A lump of anti-matter, a colliding black hole and - inevitably - an exploding alien spaceship have all been proposed as the possible source of the blast.
But in 2007, Giuseppe Longo, from the University of Bologna, Italy, and his colleagues, suggested they might have found something Leonid Kulik had missed all those years ago.
Lake Cheko does not appear on any maps of the area made before 1908; it also happens to lie North-West-West of the epicentre, on the general path taken by the impactor as it plummeted to Earth.
To Dr Longo, a radar signal from beneath the lake is suggestive of a dense object, possibly part of the Tunguska meteorite, buried about 10m down. The team plans to conduct an expedition to the area in 2009, to investigate this possibility.
"We have no positive proof it is an impact crater, we have come to this conclusion [about Lake Cheko] through the negation of other hypotheses," Dr Longo told BBC News last year.
But other researchers, including Gareth Collins and Phil Bland of Imperial College London, cast doubt on the idea Lake Cheko has anything to do with the Tunguska event.
They point to trees older than 100 years which are still standing around the rim of the lake (and, they say, should have been levelled by the impact) and the unusual shape of the lake itself, which, the researchers argue, is inconsistent with an impact origin.
Rock search
One hundred years on, the Tunguska event remains a vibrant area for study, especially in Russia. Last week, researchers gathered in Moscow for a scientific conference arranged to coincide with the anniversary.
Topics on the agenda were the continuing search for pieces of the space rock, the comet vs asteroid debate and the relationship of the event to the Beta Taurid meteor shower.
Dr Longo and colleagues presented a new tree-fall map, which they say is suggestive of two separate objects exploding in the atmosphere over Tunguska on 30 June.
The conference also heard presentations on other historic and prehistoric cosmic impacts and current strategies for tackling an asteroid headed for Earth.
An asteroid on the order of one kilometre in diameter hits the Earth roughly once every 100,000 years.
Space rocks about 10m across - roughly the size of the Tunguska object - are thought to hit our planet about once every 3,000 years.
But Mark Bailey suspects they might be more frequent than that. He has investigated another event in 1930 known as the "Brazilian Tunguska".
This little-known event was apparently caused by three large meteorites in the upper reaches of the Amazon. The fires it caused continued uninterrupted for weeks and depopulated hundreds of kilometres of jungle.
And in June 2002, US military satellites detected an explosion in the Earth's atmosphere with the energy of 12 kilotonnes of explosive. The event has been attributed to an asteroid which remained undetected as it approached our planet and plummeted through the atmosphere.
'Nuclear winter'
The international Spaceguard survey programme has been working to identify the Near-Earth Objects larger than 1km - the class of object could cause a "nuclear winter" if one were to strike the planet, possibly threatening civilisation.
Objects the size of the one that caused the Tunguska impact are too small to be seen by present-day surveys.
But there is no guarantee the next object will explode over the sea or a sparsely populated wilderness. This begs an obvious question: how prepared are we for the next one?
Dr Richard Crowther is head of the United Nations Near Earth Object (Neo) programme. He told the BBC News website: "Tunguska reminds us that these impact events have occurred in the relatively recent past.
"The surveys suggest that objects of this size are numerous enough to anticipate similar events in the relatively near future."
Many observers are concerned by what they regard as a lack of action to counter the threat posed by near-Earth asteroids.
California-based space advocacy group the Planetary Society recently awarded an Atlanta-based aerospace company $50,000 (£25,000) to design a spacecraft which could rendezvous with and track the path of the asteroid 99942 Apophis.
In 2029, this 270m-wide chunk of cosmic debris will closely approach the Earth - so close, in fact, it will be visible with the naked eye.
If this primordial behemoth passes through a precise region in space, or "keyhole", several hundred kilometres wide during this pass, it will strike Earth in 2036.
The Planetary Society initiated its tagging mission because, it says, Earth-based observations might not be sufficient to rule out an impact in 2036.
There are several technologies that could be used currently to tackle an asteroid heading on a collision course with Earth. One proposal is to use nuclear weapons to completely vapourise the object.
Another is to use a spacecraft to "push" the asteroid off course. This would involve a craft either slowing down or speeding up the object to ensure that it misses its appointment with the Earth's surface.
If, for some reason, the asteroid is not spotted in time, or the deflection mission arrives at its target too late, it might be necessary to nudge the space rock just enough so that it strikes the ocean, or a remote, thinly populated area on Earth.
Dr Crowther, who is based at the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), comments that Neos "do not recognise national boundaries".
For this reason among others, he said, it was important that any policy framework established to counter the asteroid threat "should encourage nations to work together to share data, expertise and resources to assess and mitigate the risk of a future impact".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7470283.stm
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2005
- Messages
- 11,990
On the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska event, three Tunguska Threads merged.
P_M
P_M
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 29,622
- Location
- Out of Bounds
FYI: There are some tidbits about the 'Brazilian Tunguska' incident to be found at these URL's:
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf103/sf103g08.htm
http://www.anomalist.com/reports/tunguska.html
http://space.newscientist.com/channel/s ... 820031.400
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf103/sf103g08.htm
http://www.anomalist.com/reports/tunguska.html
http://space.newscientist.com/channel/s ... 820031.400
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Russian scientists in bid to solve Tunguska Event
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 1:18AM BST 02/07/2008
Russian scientists will this week attempt to solve the mystery of a giant explosion 100 years ago that turned night to day across western Europe and flattened a large swathe of Siberia.
A century after reindeer herdsmen saw a column of light that shone with the intensity of the Sun moving across the Siberian dawn sky, the Tunguska Event remains one of the modern era's most abiding scientific riddles.
From the X-Files to Indiana Jones, the makers of films and television programmes have ensured that Tunguska remains a byword for conspiracy in the imagination of science fiction buffs.
But even among serious scientists the cause of the explosion remains an enigma, a fact that has allowed the theories to multiply over the years.
The symposium in Russia has drawn together the proponents of some of the most outlandish, perhaps none more so than Yuri Lavbin.
The head of the Tunguska Space Phenomenon Fund has long blamed extraterrestrials for the explosion and in 2004 claimed to have discovered wreckage from their spacecraft.
What the aliens were up to divides Mr Lavbin's followers. The more orthodox suggest they were coming to Earth's rescue by shooting down a meteorite that would have caused far more damage if it had struck the planet.
Others maintain it was a monumental mix-up after aliens on a planet orbiting the star 61-Sygni mistakenly assumed that the 1883 eruption on Krakatoa was an attempt by earthlings to communicate with them.
They responded with a laser probe that destroyed 80 million trees in an 830 square mile radius. :shock:
The explosions that accompanied the column of blue light were so ferocious they could be heard more than 600 miles away.
Even more bizarrely, the night sky across Britain was lit up for several days by an exquisite sunset that lasted several hours and was bright enough to allow midnight games of cricket and golf across the country.
In a letter to a newspaper, one reader wrote: "I myself was aroused from sleep at 1.15am, and so strong was the light at this hour, that I could read a book by it in my chamber quite comfortably. At 1.45am the whole sky, N. and N.E., was a delicate salmon pink, and the birds began their matutinal song."
Most scientists reckon that the Tunguska explosion – 1,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima – was caused by a meteorite or a comet.
But because evidence of a meteorite crater or space debris has yet to be shown, the conspiracy theories continue to multiply.
Even in the mainstream scientific community different explanations have been offered. One theory aired this week suggested that the sudden expulsion of methane from the ground could have been responsible.
In Moscow, however, even that theory is given short shrift. Some attending the conference blamed Nikola Tesla, the eccentric American scientist who said he had developed a death ray – a particle beam weapon capable of moving at the speed of light. They claimed he had been testing it.
Others said that the explosion was the result of interaction between the universe's Ying and Yang elements or was a curse by the thunder god Ogdy.
"The facts collected over 100 years disprove the hypothesis of a meteorite or comet. The sooner we understand that the better," said Boris Rodionov, a physicist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... Event.html
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 1:18AM BST 02/07/2008
Russian scientists will this week attempt to solve the mystery of a giant explosion 100 years ago that turned night to day across western Europe and flattened a large swathe of Siberia.
A century after reindeer herdsmen saw a column of light that shone with the intensity of the Sun moving across the Siberian dawn sky, the Tunguska Event remains one of the modern era's most abiding scientific riddles.
From the X-Files to Indiana Jones, the makers of films and television programmes have ensured that Tunguska remains a byword for conspiracy in the imagination of science fiction buffs.
But even among serious scientists the cause of the explosion remains an enigma, a fact that has allowed the theories to multiply over the years.
The symposium in Russia has drawn together the proponents of some of the most outlandish, perhaps none more so than Yuri Lavbin.
The head of the Tunguska Space Phenomenon Fund has long blamed extraterrestrials for the explosion and in 2004 claimed to have discovered wreckage from their spacecraft.
What the aliens were up to divides Mr Lavbin's followers. The more orthodox suggest they were coming to Earth's rescue by shooting down a meteorite that would have caused far more damage if it had struck the planet.
Others maintain it was a monumental mix-up after aliens on a planet orbiting the star 61-Sygni mistakenly assumed that the 1883 eruption on Krakatoa was an attempt by earthlings to communicate with them.
They responded with a laser probe that destroyed 80 million trees in an 830 square mile radius. :shock:
The explosions that accompanied the column of blue light were so ferocious they could be heard more than 600 miles away.
Even more bizarrely, the night sky across Britain was lit up for several days by an exquisite sunset that lasted several hours and was bright enough to allow midnight games of cricket and golf across the country.
In a letter to a newspaper, one reader wrote: "I myself was aroused from sleep at 1.15am, and so strong was the light at this hour, that I could read a book by it in my chamber quite comfortably. At 1.45am the whole sky, N. and N.E., was a delicate salmon pink, and the birds began their matutinal song."
Most scientists reckon that the Tunguska explosion – 1,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima – was caused by a meteorite or a comet.
But because evidence of a meteorite crater or space debris has yet to be shown, the conspiracy theories continue to multiply.
Even in the mainstream scientific community different explanations have been offered. One theory aired this week suggested that the sudden expulsion of methane from the ground could have been responsible.
In Moscow, however, even that theory is given short shrift. Some attending the conference blamed Nikola Tesla, the eccentric American scientist who said he had developed a death ray – a particle beam weapon capable of moving at the speed of light. They claimed he had been testing it.
Others said that the explosion was the result of interaction between the universe's Ying and Yang elements or was a curse by the thunder god Ogdy.
"The facts collected over 100 years disprove the hypothesis of a meteorite or comet. The sooner we understand that the better," said Boris Rodionov, a physicist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... Event.html
Hello
I found this on the Doctor Who board, of all places...sorry if it's been posted here, if so, please delete it
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6868/56/
I'm not quite sure about this
I found this on the Doctor Who board, of all places...sorry if it's been posted here, if so, please delete it
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6868/56/
I'm not quite sure about this
Alytha1 said:Hello
I found this on the Doctor Who board, of all places...sorry if it's been posted here, if so, please delete it
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6868/56/
I'm not quite sure about this
There is an excellent documentary shown very recently on one of the Discovery Channels. I've borrowed someone elses comments to save me time. Problem is that a quick google search shows there are loads of doubters who say the main scientists 'facts' are nonsense. Even so the programme was well done and entertaining even if it does turn out to be all nonsense.
http://agw.bombs-away.net/showthread.php?t=80386
The point being that in the documentary they mentioned that Tunguska was likely caused by a meteor exploding high above the ground and causing damage similar to an air burst nuclear weapon. In this documentary there is allegedly evidence that a meteor detonated over the Austrian alps and the resulting plume of rock/dust etc then rained down in a fiery fashion on the poor Sodomites (not that kind) and the Gomorrahn's.
I'd love to believe there are guardian angels or aliens or whatever other deity they may be looking after us and deflecting meteors, comets etc away or blasting them out of the sky with some sort of beam/laser/maser/phaser/photon torpedo, but I prefer to rely on the Occam's Razor principle that this sort of event is most likely to have been natural and maybe was caused by an exploding meteor.
I will now sit back and wait for the online attack of the Tunguska believers society :lol:
Waylander
Ephemeral Spectre
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2007
- Messages
- 306
Read about this yestderday aswell, seems a bit far fetched (isn't even strong enough to determine the ho far fetched this story is stretched). The one piece of evidence that was mentioned is this so called alien crystal control panel? I never heard about that before, if they are coming clean about and want to let people believe the so called truth of it, how about of picture of this amazing device, or part thereof!
There's just never enough substantial undisputed photographic proof when you want it.
There's just never enough substantial undisputed photographic proof when you want it.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Oh yeah..?
Solved: riddle of Siberia's flattened forest
A century on, scientists say massive explosion was caused by comet collision
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Friday, 26 June 2009
A massive explosion that flattened an entire forest in northern Russia over an area of 800 square miles more than a century ago was almost certainly caused by the Earth colliding with a comet, according to a study by rocket scientists in the United States.
The explosion in 1908 occurred in the sky at a remote location in Siberia near the Tunguska river. It is estimated to have been equivalent to a 20-megaton nuclear bomb, which would have decimated everything within the M25 had it occurred over London rather than a largely uninhabited region.
Tunguska has long been the subject of intense speculation, with suggested causes ranging from the release of a gigantic cloud of explosive methane gas from underground, to a collision with anti-matter particles from deep space, or even the crash of a visiting extra-terrestrial spacecraft.
One of the most likely explanations, however, had been that the Earth was hit by a piece of space rock – but a number of scientific expeditions to the area failed to find the impact crater, suggesting that if such a meteoroid had struck the Earth in 1908 it must have exploded high enough in the atmosphere to have disintegrated before reaching the ground.
Now a team of researchers studying the plumes of water vapour created by the rocket engines of the Space Shuttle believe they have found the crucial evidence in favour of another theory: a collision with the icy heart of a comet.
This would have released huge volumes of water vapour at very high altitude, creating highly reflective clouds that may explain why the sky was lit up for days after the collision, with people as far away as London saying that they could read newspapers outdoors at midnight, the scientists said.
"It's almost like putting together a 100-year-old murder mystery," said Michael Kelley professor of engineering at Cornell University in New York. "The evidence is pretty strong that the Earth was hit by a comet in 1908."
The dramatic illumination of the night sky in the day after the event on 30 June 1908 was probably caused by the formation of "noctilucent" clouds – named because they are visible at night – which are made up of ice particles formed at very high altitude and low temperatures, Professor Kelley said.
A study of exhaust plumes from the Space Shuttle have shown how noctilucent clouds can form a day after a shuttle launch and many miles from its flight path due to high-speed winds generated at this altitude, the scientists found. The exhaust plume is a model of how a comet would have created similar noctilucent clouds, they said.
The appearance of skies bright enough to read newspapers at night as far away as London – some 3,000 miles away from Tunguska – could be explained by the transport of huge volumes of water vapour arising from the comet by the high winds of the upper atmosphere where these clouds form, Professor Kelley said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 20004.html
Well some people might suggest that you are not being suitably 'Fortean' if you don't accept the aliens saving the Earth theory, but reading the article I was struck by things such as the phrase
. Also its very difficult to imagine why any chemical could only be made in space.
If you look at the 'drawings' on the crystals made by the mystical lasar, they are simply normal striations found on any rock, particulary rock which has been subject to shock as would be the case if they had been hit by a metiorite.
Sorry if this isn't suitably alien friendly but part of the idea of being Fortean in outlook is to examine the evidence and come to logical conclusions without nessiccerily being constrained by mainstream thought.
Just my 2 pennies worth.
if you google for 'ferrum silicate' you find that there is no such substance except perhaps in the guys head
. Also its very difficult to imagine why any chemical could only be made in space.If you look at the 'drawings' on the crystals made by the mystical lasar, they are simply normal striations found on any rock, particulary rock which has been subject to shock as would be the case if they had been hit by a metiorite.
Sorry if this isn't suitably alien friendly but part of the idea of being Fortean in outlook is to examine the evidence and come to logical conclusions without nessiccerily being constrained by mainstream thought.
Just my 2 pennies worth.
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 29,622
- Location
- Out of Bounds
My guess is that the 'ferrum silicate' allusion derives from poor translation, and that the reference was actually to something like ferric silicate or ferrous silicate.
EnolaGaia said:
Yes.. possibly, not very space chemicaly though :?
The latest documentary I saw on this showed some russian scientist surveying the bottom of the lake and supposedly showing the the lake was uniformly covered in fallen trees, suggesting that it was in fact an impact crater which had flooded. You could argue that a meterite would have had to have hit the ground to form an impact crater rather than the standard model which is an airburst type explosion from a stony meteor flattening the trees for hundreds of miles around.
Timble2
Imaginary Person
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2003
- Messages
- 6,047
- Location
- In a Liminal Zone
Actually it's been proposed for a long time that it was a comet nucleus, i.e. a large lump of dirty ice that would explode in an airburst, rather than a rocky meteor. The latest sensible analysis of the data rather supports this.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2001
- Messages
- 54,631
Yep, I already posted about that on the main Tunguska threadTimble2 said:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... 925#882925
(I avoided this thread, as it was about rather a specialised angle.
Anyhow, is it time to move Tunguska out of UFOs?)
Tunguska should stay put, what is it if not a flying object yet to be conclusively identified?
Has there ever been a meteorite which exploded mid-air?
How could a lump of ice or even rock have the kinetic potential to yield a blast of about 20 megatons?
Have any other meteorite impacts been accompanied by similar atmospheric phenomena, or preceded by strange columns of blue light?
I'm not 100% sold on the spaceship theory but I think a "dirty snowball" comet would have been pulled apart by the earth's gravity, and a rock would have left a crater. I'm no expert on Tesla but I think 1908 is a bit early for his charged-particle beam gizmo. As for the quartz rings, probably all that remains of some hapless Siberian in the wrong neck of the woods at the wrong time, i.e. it's jewellery.
Has there ever been a meteorite which exploded mid-air?
How could a lump of ice or even rock have the kinetic potential to yield a blast of about 20 megatons?
Have any other meteorite impacts been accompanied by similar atmospheric phenomena, or preceded by strange columns of blue light?
I'm not 100% sold on the spaceship theory but I think a "dirty snowball" comet would have been pulled apart by the earth's gravity, and a rock would have left a crater. I'm no expert on Tesla but I think 1908 is a bit early for his charged-particle beam gizmo. As for the quartz rings, probably all that remains of some hapless Siberian in the wrong neck of the woods at the wrong time, i.e. it's jewellery.
Bigfoot73 said:
Its very easy for a meteorite less than a meter across traveling at something around 11 Kilometers per second to have enough kinetic energy to produce a truly enormous explosion, probably equivelent to detonating several hydrogen bombs.Its estimated that one less than 100 meters across would have enough explosive power to wipe out most life on earth.
One hit Mars a couple of billion years ago and knocked the entire surface of the northern hemisphere off to a depth of 500 meters.It very nearly split the planet in two.
Timble2
Imaginary Person
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2003
- Messages
- 6,047
- Location
- In a Liminal Zone
Even the title of this thread is wrong, there's nothing new about the idea that it was a spaceship that caused the Tunguska event, it's been around for years: off the cuff I can think of one SF novel, Chekhov's Journey, by Ian Watson (1983) where as spaceship causes the explosion.
I vaguely remembered that I'd read about earlier Russian stories about the event, and a quick google reveals:
All the quotes from Wiki.
And also from Wiki, which I didn't know, but I never much cared for the Star Trek novels.
A new theory, no, but short memories.....
I vaguely remembered that I'd read about earlier Russian stories about the event, and a quick google reveals:
All the quotes from Wiki.
And also from Wiki, which I didn't know, but I never much cared for the Star Trek novels.
A new theory, no, but short memories.....
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2003
- Messages
- 217
Unfortunately for them their report comes just as NASA releases a great photo from the space station showing how a completely dry explosion can simply push all the moisture up from below into the NLC levels. Dont really see how it has to be a comet just coz there were NLCs
http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/gallery/im ... 009048.jpg
http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/gallery/im ... 009048.jpg
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2002
- Messages
- 13,692
Spot onKarlD said:
. Glad you've grasped it.AFAIK, the first time the exploding space-ship was postulated was by Russian researcher and author Alexander Kazantsev in 1946 (don't know the name of the work itself, but Kazantsev is cited in Francis Hitching's "The World Atlas of Mysteries" published 1978.)Timble2 said:
So no, not new.
Will merge this with the existent Tunguska thread eventually, but as suggested not long ago will leave this one alone for a while to see if it has legs in its own right.
EDIT - having re-read this, I hope it doesn't seem overly dismissive - some of us just happen to remember this stuff first time round and can easily forget that others don't - so thanks to Alytha for bringing it up. Tunguska, being a static phenomenon, is prone to long periods of inactivity* and any new input will always be gratefully accepted
.* Cluster effect dictates that two theories come along at once, novel or not.
KarlD said:
I was thinking about this given that this event would have reduced any postulated martians to their constituant atoms, its odd that its never mentioned by our friends who are in constant telepathic communication with Mars.It may well be why Mars isn't a particularly healthy place right now and any life there is likely to be single celled and lurking under rocks and stuff.
Then again our friends who are in constant contact with venus never seem at all concerned that its a bit warm and raining concentrated suphuric acid.
Or... perhaps our Alien friends are remarkably stoical, it only hurts when I laugh or when I probe earthlings.
ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
- Messages
- 58,270
- Location
- Eblana
Have scientists finally found fragments of the meteorite which set off the mysterious 1908 Tunguska catastrophe?
(or have they found a rock at the bottom of a lake?)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z1vZhY69BD
(or have they found a rock at the bottom of a lake?)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z1vZhY69BD
So what happened to the old idea that the object exploded while still airborne ?
This report is suggesting it has been found intact under it's impact crater - Lake Cheko - they can't have it both ways.
Besides which if Lake Cheko was only formed in 1908 shouldn't there be some pretty 'ing obvious indication that it was of recent and rather exotic origin ?
This report is suggesting it has been found intact under it's impact crater - Lake Cheko - they can't have it both ways.
Besides which if Lake Cheko was only formed in 1908 shouldn't there be some pretty 'ing obvious indication that it was of recent and rather exotic origin ?
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 29,622
- Location
- Out of Bounds
The Italian researchers (Longo, etc.) have been promoting the notion of Lake Cheko as an impact feature for some years now.
They've surveyed the lake multiple times, and references to their results can be found in earlier posts.
They've never disputed the idea of an atmospheric break-up, and they've never claimed that anything more than a fragment of the original incoming impactor might have formed Lake Cheko.
One of the reasons they focused on Lake Cheko is that the lake didn't appear on any maps until after the Tunguska event.
They've surveyed the lake multiple times, and references to their results can be found in earlier posts.
They've never disputed the idea of an atmospheric break-up, and they've never claimed that anything more than a fragment of the original incoming impactor might have formed Lake Cheko.
One of the reasons they focused on Lake Cheko is that the lake didn't appear on any maps until after the Tunguska event.
Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,695
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
That remnant may be from a much earlier impact and not Tunguska, if it is true that the lake has been there for a long time.