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Tunguska Mystery Blast Solved?
mfarah writes: "This BBC article informs that an Italian scientist team has determined that the 1908 blast in Tunguska was in fact caused by a low density asteroid - that's why no crater was ever found. The article mentions that had the asteroid fallen into a populated area, instead of remote Siberia, hundreds of thousands of casualties would have been the result. Fortunately this news comes well after the "meteorite blast" fad has faded from Hollywood..."
However, the credibility of that claim was a bit low since it was von Däniken who said it
it's in my head
Curses i thought that documentary the x-files said some oily aliens were there
I was always under the impression that it was a mini-blackhole that wandered through our planet. that easily explains the lack of crater and the tree patterning. The worst part is, did I read this in a Larry Niven novel or watch it on Discovery channel? Ahh, the joys of waking up and feeling the Mountain Dew bubble it's way through my synapses.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
I remember when I first read about the Tunguska blast several years ago. Many stories told us that some eye witnesses had seen the object make strange turns, for example flying in an S-shaped path. Are these stories completely wrong, or can a low density asteroid behave like that in the athmosphere?
Will work for bandwidth
http://www.nearearthobjects.co.uk/
White Paper on Comet/Asteroid Impact Hazard
NEAT - NASA Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
Now if someone would only resurrect old USENET news, so I could dig out the posting I wrote about Tunguska circa 1990.
There's a great article on the myths surrounding Tunguska at http://www.jamesoberg.com/ufo/tungus.html. A Russian scientist in the sixties used a model with matchsticks for trees to compute the height and angle of the explosion from the pattern of damage of the trees. From the website:
''Aerodynamics experts in Moscow conducted an experiment about twenty years ago in an effort to simulate Tunguska's blast patterns. The scientists used a charge of explosives suspended over a board covered with miniature "trees" represented by matchsticks. In addition to the single blast point a string of smaller charges were added to reproduce the hypersonic shock wave of the object's ballistic passage through the upper atmosphere.
When the explosives were triggered, a blast pattern strikingly similar to the "butterfly" pattern of the actual Tunguska site was created in the matchstick forest. Although this experiment conclusively demonstrated that the strange pattern was due entirely to a large object that exploded naturally, the experiment's results were still being misinterpreted or misquoted years afterward.''
Completely disintegrated? One would think there would be at least a couple of small craters laying around. Its hard to imagine a fast-moving cloud of fine dust particles causing such damage.
And you all X-files fans thought that Tunguska was another Roswell. Haa haa!!!
I wonder if there is any possibility of harnessing these things as weapons. Maybe you could blow one off course using a nuclear tipped missile, and cause it to land on one of your enemies cities. I expect the DoD are investigating this concept!
I'd just like to note the article is written as a "Strong possiblity" as opposed to the posting which is made out as a definite.
Unfortunately, they tried to implement a GUI called Okha '08. The metal gears and spools could not handle the added centriptal forces due to code bloat and vapourized in a cloud of molten brass causing the reported explosion.
The Russians chose not to investigate in order to preserve their secret but the in the 60's the KGB, using records of the project used a sleeper agent to plant the seeds of Okha '08 in the fertile soil of Silicon Valley thus ensuring the downfall of western civilization.
Tom.
Oh arse
"There was a mysterious explosion of 10-15 megatons (high explosive equivalent at ..." [specific location/time follows] "...The explosion devasted an area of 1,500 miles^2 and the shock was felt as far away as 625 miles. The cause was variously attributed to a meteorite (1927), a comet (1930), a nuclear explosion (1961), antimatter (1965), a small black hole (1973) and an exploding flying saucer (1976). Although the meteorite theory was initiall rejected, a new assessment in 1992 suggest that the explosion can be accounted for by the energy released following a total disintegration at an altitude of 33,000 ft of a 98-ft-diameter common type stony asteroid traveling at hypersonic velocity at an incoming angle of 45 degrees."
Besides the obvious point that there have previously been many theories, but still no prrof (not even with the new theory), I think the more interesting fact is the sociological significance of the various theories. In each case, a theory presented taps into the buzzwords of the day.
While the idea that scientific theories are more media buzzwords than provable facts will hardly come as news to any frequent reader of slashdot, it raises the idea that modern scientists might be well served to learn a bit of history.
"Omnia quia sunt, umbra sunt."
Still my favorite. And yes, the military is (still) pursuing this option... :-)
I'd always thought that a small comet nucleus met the case. Being mostly ice, it would have a lot of chemicals (methane, ammonia) that are volatile in the earth's atmosphere. The jets of escaping gas would act like rocket exhaust and cause the odd motions that were reported by eye-witnesses. And the explosion from the volatiles would be impressive. Plus, since there was no impact crater, and no piece of the object was found, the ice would make sense. It does tend to melt, you know.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
"Fortunately this news comes well after the "meteorite blast" fad has faded from Hollywood..."
I'm not sure why that would be fortunate. If nothing else, the Tunguska incident shows that asteroids are a real threat. If Hollywood can help convince Joe/Jane Taxpayer that funneling money into government programs designed to increase the number of dishes we have monitoring the skies, that's a good thing.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
This isn't news, this theory has been around for some time. There have been many papers published on this, recent journal papers include...
I could go on, but a quick search on ADS gives 219 relevant papers.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
Benford's "Artifact"
No, wait.
Wheeler's "The Krone Experiment" (now a major motion picture!)
Ah never mind.. This one's probably been done to death.
I have it on good authority - Spider Robinson in his latest Callahan book, Callahan's Key - that the Tunguska blast was caused by Nikola Tesla testing a new super radio. It turns out that the super radio is actually the oft speculated upon Tesla Death Ray.
So, there you are. Mystery solved!
Time's fun when you're having flies. - Kermit the Frog
Well, thats what alot of Nikoli Telsa fans will tell you. His DEATH Ray skipped under the Ionosphere missing its target in the Artic Bryd was supposed to be on the look out for. Supposedly in a direct line from that location.
Before one more ASS@@@ mod hit me on a troll , Im not joking look it up......
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Comment removed based on user account deletion
While the flying rock isn't going to be able to do turns like a plane, what witnessses would likely see, and this is a guess, may be a snaking smoke trail. As a skydiver, I have been hit with varying air speeds someimes going different directions. The smoke given off from the object buring off through friction could then catch seperate drafts. With the area being Siberia and all, I would suspect the air to be quite clear, especially during winter, and the trail to be able to be seen for quite a distance. Watch the shuttle launch sometime and notice how after about 5 minutes the smoke trail is still visable except that it has drifted for a fair way.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
Leave it to science to take the easy way out. I mean, come on! Every good, Bible-unbelieving atheist knows that's where God exploded.
For more details and an alternative explanation, see the following.
Dr. Kundt is at the University of Bonn. I don't know enough to comment on his paper in detail. It seems, though, that the Italian researchers, whose work is reported by the BBC, have not considered things as well as they should have.that it was the saucer section from the Enterprise J, that had crashed after time traveling into the past to kill grampa Berman before he could procreate. Of course nothing was ever found because the Division 6 of the Department of Temporal Correctness sent a clean-up crew. I've known this for years. How come nobody ever listens to me?
You do realize that Hitler had next to nothing to do with WWI and the great depression? He was just a normal German soldier in WWI, nothing special.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
All matter that we know has 2 states, left spinning and right spinning. Every Atom, proton, netron(etc) exists in both left and right spinning forms, copies of each other. In neutrino's only the left handed version exists. Which in a radical theory explains that there exists invisable matter in which cannot see casued the blast, which is why we cannot find any traces of an asteroid. This one of the the theories that a Robert Foot of the University of Melbourne. Sorry, I saw this on TV last night. Please search for Robert Foot and mirror matter to understand this in more depth.
> hard to imagine a fast-moving cloud of fine dust particles causing such damage
High pressure steam causing damage
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Ever read Timeline, by Michael Crichton?
I can see Tunguska as a great place to send people from the future, if you want them to be executed. Tunguska and Pompeii, Hiroshima....
I distinctly remember seeing a show on this (Discovery channel, PBS, or some channel like that) that already discussed this quite a while back. They had already come to the conclusion the blast was either a comet or asteroid detonating in the atmosphere like a nuclear air blast. Anyone else remember seeing this?
Project Steve
Well, you're only sort of wrong. Its true that this is the explosion that has been blamed on Tesla in the past occasionally, but its pretty blimming unlikely that he really did cause it. The facts match the metereorite explanation much better, but that doesn't help the 'Tesla found powers man was not meant to know' story.
Mind you, when the Tesla-as-Frankenstein myth gives us stories like 'The Prestige' then I'll not be complaining too much; its a truly brilliant novel.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I saw this theory someplace about a month back. If I remember right, the two types of matter don't interact much, so a "mirror matter" asteroid impact would have the same effect as an ultra-low density asteroid. Supposedly, there would have been enough reaction with air to make it explode, but after that the rest of the "mirror matter" would likely bury itself underground (because of the weak interaction, it would pass through the surface before ultimately being stopped).
The article also said that this was a possible explanation of dark matter, since it would exert gravitational pull but would not be observable.
Interesting idea, although it would likely be impossible to improve.
Of course, it could have just been a fat Russian cutting wind near a campfire, but I'm no scientician,
-- If any of the above made sense, I assure it was purely by accident.
Preposterous! We all know that it was Tesla's expiriment with transmitting high voltage electricity through the ionosphere that did that blast!
All hail Tesla!
You can't take the sky from me...
I've seen a show on the Discover Channel dedicated to this about 5 years ago.
Whoever was researching it at the time talked to natives in the area of the blast, especially to this elderly woman that was alive when the blast occured. He got her description of the blast and found it to be concurrent to a meteorite blast in ultra-low orbit.
What makes this so mysterious is that all the trees in a cardiod (polar graph) were flattened, but in the center, the trees were standing up.
The researcher did an experiment and recreated the conditions on a miniature scale model. He had a big table with pins with white flags on them to represent the trees. He proved that it was a blast (assuming from an asteroid) from the air. He also figured out at what height and angle from the ground the specific asteroid was coming from at the point of it's explosion.
I was watching the Discovery channel yesterday night and they had a segment on the siberia blast, they had this guy claiming that it had to do with mirror matter (kinda like anti-matter except that it passes through normal matter instead of blowing up with it). See, this guys has this theory about said mirror matter, and he thinks that the blast could have been caused by it (he's clearly trying to get attention for his pet theory by pointing out that it could DOOM US ALL).
It was the usual meteorite theory with a parralel-universe twist.
Unfortunatly I wasn't paying attention when they got the part about why it would have interacted with our matter in that particular instance...anybody?
You can't take the sky from me...
is this going to change the way people interpret the classic tarkovsky film 'Stalker'?
"The direction controls are the same in Nethack as they are in vi." "Yeah, I hardly ever die in vi anymore."
Im sorry to bring this up, im almost embarrassed to ask.
;) and as party conversation happens, we talked about allot of interesting things.
I was at a party this past weekend, we ate and drank very well.. sushi and absinthe
Somehow, in all of this up comes the Tunguska blast. Now, one of the other guests was from Croatia and was a fan of Tesla. The conversation began discussing the most important invention in modern history (he argued AC(betraying his Tesla bias...)) but I argued the industrial revolution began without it, and that AC wasnt the end-all-be-all he suggested... ANYWAY: In this conversation up comes Tunguska. He asserts, with the corroboration of other guests, that the blast was a display of a some top-secret AC weapon that was Tesla's brainchild.
Now, they didnt guarantee that it was absolute truth, but they all had received this meme and could neither confirm nor deny its truth - just that it had been suggested.
Can ANYONE provide some information on this theory? I recognize fanatical theories are often just those - this might be as big a flight of fancy as the Freemasons or alien-butt probes, the latter being more fancy to some i 'spose, but does anyone have information on this gem of a meme?
If you throw a nuclear missile at your enemy's city, then you get nuked in return, start World War III, and generally make a mess of things.
If you can change the course of an asteroid, then you can cause the same magnitude of destruction without it being traceable to you, and indeed without it being a proveably unnatural event. So you got to destroy a city or an ultrahardened target free from retaliation. Of course, this is only useful for an unprovoked attack, so it requires a level of "rat bastard" thinking that's probably too much for the DoD. CIA, maybe.
Or am I missing something?
Sort of, but don't feel bad about it - at least you didn't make an ass of yourself like the AC a few posts below you.
Now we know that (and where) Maniac Mansion existed - and Bernard finally managed to blow up Dr. Fred's home reactor.
If it was a comet that exploded over Tunguska, I think way, way more people would have seen the comet trail heading towards Earth before it exploded.
The light meteor theory makes way more sense, since there was no visible signs from astronomers of such a small meteor heading our way back in 1908. Besides, the speed of the that meteor relative to Earth when it finally hit the Earth's atmosphere was probably around 40,000 mph, and the friction of the atmosphere at that speed is way higher than the temperatures encountered on the heat shield of the Apollo Command Module when it re-entered the atmosphere at 25,000 mph after a Moon mission.
It's no small wonder why the meteor exploded, given the high atmospheric friction of its entry.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I'll not deny that Marcell was a pretty high up guy, I'm just pointing out that whoever made the decision to use that particular story as cover for the balloon made a fairly headache-inducing call.
To be fair though, it certainly helped divert attention away from other, military, reasons for odd-looking things seen in the sky for decades, so who am I to say it was a dumb move I suppose.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
No doubt it did take out a trapper or two, who knows, maybe one of 'em was a Hitler or Stalin.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
still think it was one ofNikola Tesla's experiments. :)
And they all say the same thing.
Of course, if it's printed in three different books, it must be true. I don't even need the titles of the books to believe you! Nor do I need to wonder whether all three books are referencing the same flawed source! Nor do I even need to dwell on the logical validity of the claims. Bottom line: BOOKS NEVER LIE.
Actually, I am perfectly aware of the gambler's fallacy, but am also aware of the dynamics better than that. Because a Tunguska snowball is almost certainly a discharge from a meta-stable Oort Cloud, the kinetic energy lost must be restored to allow another discharge. This means that if you have one discharge every 1000 years and you had one 100 years ago, the chances of a discharge are less than 1/1000. Astronomical events are not random as your refutation would require.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Actually, I'm just on here for this abuse. The fact that I actually studied with someone who came up with the Nemesis theory and had to work out the kinetic energy equations to demonstrate why such events aren't random, but much closer to periodic has nothing to do with this. Not only do I have six people jumping on to correct me, but they're wrong and I have the opportunity to show them why.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
The Oort cloud is an unbelievably enormous thing. "Locally" for it means millions of miles. Each local section could kick out a comet on average per x time, but other areas, of which there are many, could also kick out some.
Yes, I agree that overall it would be mildly statstically diminished, but I think that effect would be magnitudes less than other reasons for comets, etc. Similarly, I did not mention that the comet might disturb any similar-sized things also heading to earth and cause them to miss it, because I judged that too low statistically to mention.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Aluminum, shaluminum. Mine's made of a tritanium, dilithium alloy. It keeps out cosmic rays and Vulcan mind melds. I know because the guy at the rubber Klingon-forehead table that sold it to me said so.
There's an article in the Nov 2001 edition of the Fortean Times
that reports on the latest theory that the Tunguska Event was
caused by a "volcanic blowout".
IMO, this will never be fully resolved as it was literally years
before any investigative team went anywere near the place.
Actually, I said a Oort cloud, not the Oort cloud. The Nemesis theory which I mentioned gave rise to similiar clouds being proposed for several locations about the solar system. Giving rise to several periodic bombardments of the inner solar system. The 1000 year one would have to be much closer than the Oort Cloud. Also much less dense and much smaller objects. That we can see any members comes from my favorite quote on the topic "We have a snowballs chance in . . . well, . . . you know."
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Actually, you made the mistake, as did the moderator who raised your score. You see, astronomical events aren't randomly distributed, they are cyclical. Don't apply statistics when you understand the system.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
I think it was probably some combination of things. The forest there was all evergreen, right? Evergreen sap is flammable - sometimes highly so. Anyone who's ever driven in the cold knows that the colder the temperature, the more energy is released in a vaporous explosion.
It could have been a chain of events like this:
1) ball lightning and/or forest critters strips particles of organic matter from surrounding trees
2) the wind is still enough for all these particles to form a cloud
3) another lightning strike or ball lightning hits and ignites the cloud
4) the combination of the pitch and the cold causes a massive explosion of the 'vapor cloud'.
Think of it as a spontaneous fuel-air bomb.
Of course, I'm just speculating and I'm mostly full of s**t, so don't take this to your Ph. D board or anything...
I remember seeing a movie on television about this. It is was the saturday afternoon variety back when you only had a handful of stations to choose from. It stared the bad guy from "Man from Atlantis" (cooked balooga, 43.8C,etc...)
He was in space in the future, working on an Apple ][ (not even e) looking at the possible reasons for the explosion. His witty Apple ][ played a good supporting role to his brandishing insults, ran simulations and gave data on mini-black holes, UFO's, Anti-Matter, and Asteroids.
Anyone else remember that movie?
This has been theorized for years and years and years.. it's still the most plausible explanation.
You know, your title is backwards. If you wrote a book, you would be an author.
in a science show called _Ochevidnoe-Neveroyatnoe_ (Obvious-Unbelivable). I remember watching it when I was a kid. I distinctly remember that the guy used a bag with black gun powder moving on a string above the field of matches. Then I read a dozen papers clearly proving it to be a low density snow ball.
Do your research before posting yet another piece of 20 year old news.
I'd be interested in a more in-depth explanation. I understand that some astronomical events are cyclical (meteor showers, for instance) based on orbital concurrency, but I don't think that's how those odds are figured. A lot of things that aren't randomly distributed can be, nevertheless, accurately described statistically. Why do you not think this is the case with anything astronomical?
No relation to Happy Monkey
Actually, the outlook is probably worse than the simple linear random probability in your example, because meteorites/asteroids do NOT have a uniform random distribution throughout the Universe. Rather (since they must have been formed by some process), they tend to often be in groups (which is the reason we have meteor storms). So if we're hit by a relatively big one tomorrow, it is more likely than just linear-random that there might be a few more big ones following behind it.
Of course, either way, you are completely correct that JJ's reasoning is completely incorrect :) We've got just as big a chance of being hit on any one day as on any other day. The fact is, the scenario *is* a real *potential* threat to our survival, and if we actually have the technology to scan for and destroy such threats, then there is no excuse for not using the technology, its just plain stupid not to. But the whole world seems to have fallen into the global equivalent of the "it can't happen to me" syndrome that occurs with individuals regarding accidents; a global "it won't happen to us" sort of self-denial. Why wouldn't it? As you say, it could be tomorrow.
I remembering reading someplace that many at the time attributed this to an experiment N.Tesla was running in the US; Trying to transmit usable electric current through the air. It was a theory of some that this experiment caused the damage on the other side of the planet. This along with utility companies realizing the downfall that would result if electricity was free to anyone who wanted to grab it out of air killed Tesla's final masterpiece of a project.
or something like that
Keep in mind that the source for this biography, www.parascope.com, bills itself as "ParaScope: Something Strange Is Happening" and advertises its main sections as:
Draw your own conclusions.
See, that's what happens when you have those low quality asteroids imported from god knows where. Always look for the "Made in the USA" sticker.
The asteroid hypothesis has been around for years. I recall an aricle in Sky & Telescope several years ago which said much the same thing. The blast was caused by atmospheric disruption of a carbonaceous chondrite; a low density asteroid.
As for the lack of physical material, we shouldn't be particularly surprised about that. It took more than two decades for an expedition to reach the site, and it's a pretty swampy area as well. For comparison, a similar, though much smaller (basically just a fireball) event near Revelstoke in the 1960's left nothing to be found on the ground, even though people were in the area within hours. After twenty years, the chances of finding anything physical would be, pardon the pun, astronomical.
Anywho, back to my original point: -1 to the Italians for redundancy.
Per Ardua Ad Astra
I just finished reading "Uriel's Machine" by Robert Lomas and Christopher Knight (an awesome read) that talks about this very incident, and comes to the exact same conclusion...and it was published in 1998. Its actually a great book if you are interested in learning more about the theory that a comet impact on Earth caused Noah's flood, and every other cataclysmic flood talked about in ancient religions. It provides some sources for the basis of it's hypothesis, as well.
The recent appearance of this story in the popular media is a pretty good testament to the abject crappiness of science-related news coverage. The low-density asteroid airburst explanation of the Tunguska event has been established as the dominant theory for the explosion since the mid-late eighties. This is not new.
max
but cool nonetheless.
meteor collision calculator! [janus.astro.umd.edu]
Exantrius
They finally found the remains of some poor hunter at the center of the explosion along with thousands of empty cans of beans. He must have been eating those beans for months, and then one day he let one rip a little too close to the campfire...
That should be:
Endless loop:(n); see Loop, Endless.
Loop, Endless: (n); see Endless loop.
Do a google search before posting.
I'm doing a project on Tesla in my Creative Imaging II class, so if you'll permit a highschool student to do a little educating, I'll try to remember what I read about this incident.
The story, as I remember it, goes like this:
Nikola Tesla, being the eccentric, quixotic type of genius that he was, had created at his Wardenclyffe Laboratory a large tower which he called a Death Ray. His plan was to use these rays (sort of similar in concept to particle beam weapons, I believe) to create an impenetrable defensive perimiter around the country -- around all countries actually -- thus eliminating all war. Tesla was always coming up with things like this...he also came up with a (possible viable) plan for the free transmission of energy throughout the world, but that's a different story.
So anyway, he had this death ray. It had never been tested, but of course it would have to be. He gets word of an upcoming expedition to the North Pole headed by Robert Peary, and he notified the leader that he was going to signal him on a specific night (June 30, 1908) but refrained from mentioning exactly what sort of a signal it would be. His idea was to fire a death-ray-blast "over the heads" so to speak of the exploration party, hitting the ground somewhere relatively nearby, and creating a blast that they could see.
So, the exploration goes out, and he does his thing. On the night of the test, he fires off the death ray. It hums...it crackles...after about twenty minutes or so, an owl flies across the almost-invisible path of the beam, and instantly disintegrates. A few minutes later, Tesla shuts it off.
Tesla eventually recieved word that Peary's party had seen nothing. He was disappointed.
A few weeks later, news comes to the U.S. of a massive explosion in central Siberia (The Tunguska blast) and is instantly convinced that this was caused by his death ray, just slightly off target. He was mortified by the destruction it wrought, and promptly scrapped his plans for the implementation of his design.
That's what I remember...I think it's fairly close to the original story, which I'm sure can be found on the web somewhere...actually, I can take care of that... this should do it. Of course, this story is not to be taken as gospel, as it's well known that a: Nikola Tesla was slightly crazy (though incredibly brilliant) and b: unconfirmed web sources from web pages that specialize in the paranormal, conspiracies, and similar things are suspect at best. However, I think it makes for at least an interesting story.
Oh, and by the way, if you haven't looked up Tesla himself, I highly reccomend that you do so. Incredibly interesting stuff.
Well, that's all,
~Syriloth
Considering that 2/3:s of the earths area is water, and some of the surface is uninhabitated, what's the risk of an asteroid of the same size hitting a populated area if it came today? Does someone have any figures?
The moderators seem to think that Troed is serious!