The mysterious name of a meteorite that fell in Siberia in the USSR

Probably only the deaf did not hear the name of the meteorite that fell in Siberia in the USSR. This unique event occurred more than a hundred years ago, on June 30, 1908. That day at about seven in the morning the locals saw something inexplicable in the sky. True, all the materials that concerned this incident were classified. Probably, that's why the most incredible stories about him, not confirmed by the facts, spread to the people at times.

The name of the meteorite that fell in Siberia in the USSR, the scientists came up with, based on the place of its landing. The space body fell in Eastern Siberia, near the Podkamennaya river Tunguska. Today it is the Evenki District in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Therefore, today the meteorite is known to science as the Tunguska.

As the eyewitnesses of the incident themselves described, at first a dazzling balloon appeared in the sky, which moved to the northwest from the southeast. His flight was accompanied by sounds that resembled thunder in a thunderstorm. A large meteorite was visible within a radius of eight hundred kilometers, and after himself he left a dust trail that persisted for several hours.

Light phenomena ended in a super-powerful explosion at an altitude of about seven to ten kilometers. His energy was equal to the explosion of two thousand nuclear bombs, similar to those that were dropped on Hiroshima. In the TNT equivalent, it is from ten to forty megatons. Fortunately, this area is almost deserted. Here is the only village of Vanavara, and during the fall in the taiga, few nomadic Evenks hunted.

Like all meteorites that fell to the ground, Tunguska knocked down trees in the forest about a radius of forty kilometers, both humans and animals suffered. Further from the light radiation a fire broke out, which covered an area equal to two thousand square kilometers.

The name of the meteorite that fell in Siberia in the USSR today is associated with a worldwide catastrophe. After all, an explosive air wave circled the entire globe. In the Siberian villages the soil and buildings were shaken, the glass cracked in the windows, the objects flew off the shelves, people fell from their feet. In all parts of the Northern Hemisphere, for several days, unusual atmospheric and optical phenomena, visible all day, were observed.

The first explorer of the Tunguska disaster Leonid Kulik in 1927 expressed the opinion that it was a large iron meteorite. However, he did not find a single fragment of the cosmic body. This allowed other scientists to put forward a hypothesis that an icy comet, an alien spaceship, a giant fireball , had fallen in Siberia . They also expressed other opinions, they say, it was an unsuccessful experiment by the physicist Nikola Tesla, a black hole, a laser signal from an extraterrestrial civilization, and so on.

The Academy of Sciences of the USSR carefully studied the incident, equipped expeditions, conducted aerial photography of the site of the fall. Amateur enthusiasts often joined professional scientists. However, until now, no officially found fragments of the body that fell in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area.

The name of the meteorite that fell in Siberia in the USSR today means a phenomenon that has not been fully studied. In 1995, in the epicenter of the explosion a hundred years ago, a natural reserve of the Russian Federation, protected by the state, was established.