Via Fark comes the news that thieves have stolen a rock that the owners claim is from the Tunguska blast, a meteoroid that blew up over Siberia in 1908.
Only one problem: there was no confirmed debris from the blast.
This was one of the two biggest mysteries of the blast. The explosion was huge, like a nuclear weapon, yet it left no crater, and no debris. It was later determined that it was probably a chunk of rocky asteroid that blew up in the air miles above the ground. The rock disintegrated, and since it didn’t hit the ground there was no crater. Trees were knocked down for miles, and the blast wave in the air was detected around the world. But the meteoroid itself vaporized, and no chunks have ever been found.
Interestingly, the article about the theft says:
The giant rock was stolen from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908, news agency Interfax reported.
Hmmm, you’d think such a foundation would have a web page, but I couldn’t find it. You’d also think the director of such a foundation would know that no debris was ever found. However, later in the article, though, there is this:
Foundation director Yury Lavbin brought the three-tonne rock to Krasnoyarsk after an 2004 expedition to the site of the so-called “Tunguska event” … Mr Lavbin claimed at the time to have discovered the wreckage of an alien spacecraft during the expedition.
Ah, that clears it up. My mistake. The rock was clearly from the space aliens; it must have survived in their cargo hold after their ship exploded with the force of several megatons. Obviously, these were no ordinary thieves: they were the aliens, coming back for their rock. They must really like it.
[rolleyes]
As a friend of mine used to say, "there are no winners here". So the guy who claims the rock was from the event is fairly obviously a crackpot, the thieves risked prison time over an ordinary rock, and no doubt there will be a third party who will pay good money for what is really just a chunk of junk.
Maybe the only smart party here is the thieves: it may be ordinary rock, but I’m sure they’ll make a lot of money from it.
Cripes. I’m in the wrong business.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Lex Luthor, obviously.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:23 am
If the Tunguska meteoroid blew up in the air miles above the ground, are similar events possible on other rocky planets with an atmosphere like, say, Mars? Any evidence of Tunguska-like events on Mars?
August 12th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Wait, that’s not all!
http://www.gaiaguys.net/Tunguska.htm
April 21st, 2007
Artifacts With Extraterrestrial Writings Discovered Near Tunguska Site
Created: 18.04.2007 14:53 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:26 MSK
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2007/04/18/tunguska.shtml
Scientists from the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk claim that they have discovered several artifacts with extraterrestrial writings near the fall site of the Tunguska meteorite, the Regnum news agency reports.
The president of the Tunguska Space Phenomenon research foundation told reporters that several quartz boulders with mysterious writings on them were found in the Tunguska river basin in 2006. The boulders were tested in Krasnoyarsk and Moscow and test results speak for the fact that they are of extraterrestrial origin, he said.
The boulders were covered in strange signs of artificial origin, presumably made with plasma.
Russian researchers suggested a hypothesis that the quartz tablets were parts of an information container delivered to Earth by the extraterrestrial spaceship that crashed in Tunguska region in 1908.
Russian researcher also said that scientists from the United States, Britain, France and Germany have requested the newly-found artifacts for research, but Russians want to be the first people to decode the message from another civilization.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:40 am
More seriously, there was a recent report about a lake nearby to the supposed epicenter with an unusual depth profile more typical for an impact than for erosion type and a possible density anomaly under it, that might be of impact origin: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-3121.2007.00742.x
Nothing’s sure yet, and they’ll need follow-up expeditions, however.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Signs of artificial origin, CS? My! It can only be aliens! I mean, no HUMAN would think of scribbling nonsense!
This is all ridiculous. What IS wrong with some people? well, hopefully the awesome rock will be found back and who knows, maybe it’ll be given to some scientists for some analysis to determine if it IS a meteorite, hmm? I wonder if he had an analysis done already. I’d like to know.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Geez, why didn’t I think of that?
Can the thieves even be prosecuted for anything?
Think about it. They took a rock. A regular old worthless rock. If I walked into my neighbor’s yard and took a rock, I’m not even sure that’s a crime, is it?
Can you imagine the look on the judge’s face when the S.W.A.T. team drags me into the courtroom in manacles and says “Your Honor, she stole a rock.”?
Kisses
August 12th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I know humans who scribble a lot of nonsense. Here’s a just minted Kaism- If I had a dollar for every nut on this planet, I’d be on another one by now.
August 12th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
It’s possible that the stolen rock is actually a meteroite that the director erroneously linked to the Tunguska Event. Then the rock would certainly be worth something.
August 12th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I’m pretty sure a three tonne meteor would still have left a pretty sizable crater, no matter where it landed.
August 12th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Any meteorite found at the Tungkuska site would be the holy grail of meteorite finds. That thing would have been tested and retested. And then tested again.
Heck, I’ve got a bunch of “meteorites” in my yard. How much do people want to spend? I can authenticate them as well, and send you the CoA.
August 12th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
How much tourist business does Roswell get? Maybe the Russians are just trying to get into the act?
August 12th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I once read a biography of Nikola Tesla (I believe the author was Director of Tesla’s museum) where it says that Tesla’s experiments in wireless energy transmission caused all that mayhem in Tunguska. The book also claims that Tesla sends them (the museum?, government?) messages about the latest inventions and that Tesla is happier now than ever before. As a matter of fact, his roommate is none other than Einstein. lol Not making it up.
August 12th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Rivi supplies a very interesting link in the 10:40 AM post.
August 12th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I think the Tunguska event was the space craft my grandmother arrived on. She reportedly kicked the pilot in the reproductive organs(located on top of its head), then escaped the craft in a life pod, after setting the self destruct,,,she certainly SEEMED an extraterrestrial life form,,,sometimes,,,
Gary 7
August 12th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
I am not sure the veracity of this, but I have heard that when they calculated the detonation altitude of the meteor it was coincidentally at almost the ideal altitude to maximize ground damage. When they are detonating nukes, detonating them on the ground does not cause as much damage as detonating them a ways above the ground (whether it is at the ideal altitude or not, assuming it isn’t too high). Lucky it happened in one of the most uninhabited regions of the planet and before nuclear weapons, that thing could easily have wiped out a city or triggered a nuclear war. As it happened, not one person died in the explosion.
Obviously this is not evidence of alien involvement since if they wanted to maximize damage they would have detonated somewhere where they would actually have caused damage (unless they have some grudge against elk).
August 12th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
On the subject of Fiction surrounding the Tunguska even, has anyone read (or heard the podiobook) “Singularity” by William H DeSmedt?
In it Bill DesMedt plays the what if game: What if Tunguska was caused by a microsingularity, and what it it was still orbiting under the crust of the Earth…
I quite enjoyed the story, a nice little detective/action book. You can check out the podiobook (as read by the author) at:
http://www.podiobooks.com/title/singularity
Or DeSmedt’s website at: http://www.singularitythebook.com/
August 12th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
That’s not quite true.
If the purpose of your nuclear explosion is to squish a city, then yes, detonating it as an air burst at an appropriate altitude (depends on the expected yield of the explosion) will tend to maximize the damage to surface buildings and exposed critters.
If the purpose of your nuclear explosion is to crack bunkers, then a surface or sub-surface burst near the nut to be cracked is the best bet.
if the purpose of your nuclear explosion is to make a mess and create fallout, it’s hard to beat a surface burst on a windy day. It’s hard to call this “less damage” than an air burst because although it will flatten less buildings, it will cause radioactive debris to be strewn over a much larger area, thereby causing long-term damage that an airburst simply won’t.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Kurt the ‘Tunguska =singularity / micro-black hole’ idea was also used in “Earth’ an SF novel by David Brin – quite an interesting and worthwhile read.
Janie Belle : “Think about it. They took a rock. A regular old worthless rock. If I walked into my neighbor’s yard and took a rock, I’m not even sure that’s a crime, is it?”
Afraid so, trespass and, technically, theft too I think although its unlikely it’d be considered a serious felony. Mind you it wasn’t an ordinary rock either, if it _was_ a meteorite – some of them can be worth quite a bit and a verified Tunguska one would be especially valuable – if that’s what it was which seems highly implausible.
Black Cat : Elk? Sorry to be pedantic but it was reindeer .. lots of em too! No elk in Siberia I think. As far as we know no-one was killed – a very sparsely populated area indeed & co-incidentally another meteorite fall the Shikote-Ailin happened a decade or so later in the same region.
The Tunguska blast took place on June 30th 1908 but it was many years afterwards that the first scientific expedition led by a bloke called Leonid Kulik (who has a rather targic personal story but that’s another matter) examined the scene. Theories and calculations suggest the meteorite involved may have been a rockyfragment of Encke’s comet.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Actually, Janie Belle, on reflection, I guess it depends how well you get on with your neighbours – if they’re happy for you to wander into their place and vist then it won’t necessarily be trespass …
August 12th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Michelle said: “Signs of artificial origin, CS? My! It can only be aliens! I mean, no HUMAN would think of scribbling nonsense!”
That reminds me of the line in the opening scenes in Ghostbusters (I don’t remember the exact quote)…
“Symmetrical bookstacking! This is amazing!”
“Right, Ray… no human being would stack books like that.”
August 13th, 2007 at 4:03 am
maybe it was that rare substance
illudium phosdex
August 13th, 2007 at 7:30 am
For P. Amoroso (8/12 10:23 am post), I’m not sure if there are such events on Mars. I would suspect there are, but the atmosphere is so thin that any such event would probably be pretty small. Venus, on the other hand, has evidence of numerous such events. There are many examples of areas that have suffered shock waves that have altered the surface without creating an impact crater. These are attributed to exactly the kind of event that occurred in Tunguska.
The dynamics believed to be involved is that as the mass enters the atmosphere, it begins to pancake. This increases its air resistance and causes it to pancake even more. Meanwhile, pressure on the leading side builds up, while the pressure on the trailing side is much lower, creating a pressure differential. Eventually, the forces reach a point where the whole thing suddenly comes to a stop. All of the kinetic energy in the system has to be released somehow. Hence, the big boom.
How big the explosion is and it’s altitude is dependent on several things: the initial mass, the structure and composition of the object, how fast it’s initial velocity is, and the structure and composition of the planetary atmosphere.
Tunguska is the most notable example, but they actually occur once or twice a week around the globe. Most are over the ocean or uninhabited regions and half of them are in daylight, and are usually much higher in the atmosphere, which explains why few are ever observed or reported. Defense satellites routinely detect the explosions in the atmosphere.
A scary incident occurred in June 2002. Pakistan and India were on the verge of nuclear warfare when one of these exploded over the Mediterranean region. If it had entered the atmosphere just a few seconds earlier it would have exploded over the disputed region between India and Pakistan. You have to assume they would’ve shot first and asked questions later.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:10 am
As a sort of aside, what is the expected statistical incidence of the planet being struck by objects of similar size to the Tunguska object?
Given that there’s a lot more people and inhabited area on the Earth, shouldn’t we be worried about the defence against such things?
August 13th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Here’s a good article on Yuri Lavbin from The Skeptical Inquirer, 2004:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_6_28/ai_n6361817
No mention of a rock, but I wonder what ever became of the alien artifact he found?
J. D.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:27 am
StevoR: “As far as we know no-one was killed.” It’s my recollection that 2 people were thought killed – one who was thrown against a tree and one who had a heart attack. Sorry, no citations. However, it was not investigated by outsiders until many years later, so any such reports are probably unreliable.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Woohoo! It’s great to hear about the Tunguska Fireball any day.
It’s sad that that aliens nonsense is proliferating about Tunguska again. I had thought the public had finally, finally accepted the scientific consensus that it was an asteroid or comet. (I always thought the comet idea was silly, since a loose ball of dust and ice would just come apart–can someone tell me if I was off base there?)
But NOO! This Crusade of the Credulous can’t stick to religious extremism–it has to descend into increased acceptance of other superstitious nonsense. It’s been especially sad to see the virulent propagation of woo since the fall of Communism. I realize there had to be some down side to the Eastern Bloc disbanding (besides its being not as good a tourist destination), but did it have to be this?
August 13th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I always heard that no one was killed at Tung., but I could be wrong. UnMuseum has a few pages about it. It couldn’t have been Tesla, because his Long Island lab had been closed the year before. I wrote a short sci-fi story where a bad guy stole Tesla’s Death Beam plans, caused Tung., and then his machine blew up from the stress, but in the present, everybody is after those plans…
You know, in Cosmos, there is a paragraph that basically boils down to “In our modern, Cold War world, a Tung.-like asteroid impact would almost certainly result in the rule of the roaches.”
Once, I had a science teacher who I was very good friends with, and we we both were interested in Nikola Tesla. My teacher bought two books about him on the Internet. One of them was this terrible woo-woo piece of junk that not only mentioned the Tung. theory, it also said that Tesla was an Atlantian and he had flown to Mars and carved the ‘pyramids’! I thought the book was a joke.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Physics309: thank you very much for your informative reply.