Abstract
The analysis of 700 eyewitness’s stories about the Tunguska disaster enables to have an important information about the Tunguska cosmic body, its flight and destruction. Having compared the visual sizes of the flying object with the Sun, according to eyewitnesses stories, one can conclude that the visual size of the cosmic body considerably, more than 10 times, exceeded the real size of the Tunguska body. Dozens eyewitnesses noted sparkles scattering from the object, therefore the body’s substance was breaking to pieces strongly, its fragments flying out of the object at a speed close to that of the cosmic body. The flying object resembled an inflammation, both in its coloure and form, i.e. the substance that had separated from the object was undergoing a reaction of burning with atmospheric oxygen. Eyewitnesses neatly determined a head and a tile divided by a bottleneck in the contour of the flying object. Therefore, substance of the cosmic body must have comprised two components at least. Gases and small dust particles got burned down right at the moment of discharging from the object, thus forming “the head”. Larger fragments formed the burning tail of the flying object. In settlements at a distance of 200–350 km from the epicentre eyewitnesses noted that the flying object had a multicoloured iridescent tail. Duration of the flight of the body was more than 1 min inasmuch as people had enough time to go out from their houses to discern the phenomenon.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Astapovich IS (1951) Great Tunguska meteorite: investigation history. Priroda 2:23–32
Chernoivanova LP, Tishankina LK, Koshinskaya OS (2011) The journal of interrogation of eyewitnesses of the TM fall along r. Angara from Bratsk to Irkutsk in June 1969. http://tunguska.tsc.ru>ru/science/mat/ oche/1-30/d-024/. Accessed 11 November 2011
Konenkin VC (1967) Reports of eyewitnesses on the Tunguska meteorite of 1908. Probl. Tungusskogo meteorita, vol 2. Tomsk University Press, Tomsk, pp 31–35
Krinov EL (1963) Messengers of the Universe. GIGL Press, Moscow
Kulik LA (1927) To problem of place of Tunguska meteorite 1908 fall. Dokl Akad Nauk SSSR: 399–402
Naumenko TN (1941) Observation of the Tunguska meteorite flight. Meteoritika 2:119–120
Suslov IM (1927) To search of large meteorite 1908. Mirovedenie 16(1):13–18
Suslov IM (1967) Examination of eyewitnesses to the Tunguska disaster of 1908. Probl Tungus Meteor, vol 2. Tomsk University Press, Tomsk, pp 21–30
Vasil’ev NV, Kovalevsky AF, Razin SA, Epictetova LE (1981) Evidences of eyewitnesses of Tunguska fall (catalogue). Tomsk University Press, Tomsk
Voznesensky AV (1925) A meteorite fall on June 30, 1908 at the head of Khatanga river. Mirovedenie 14(1):25–38
Acknowledgements
This work was sponsored by the 22 Program of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gladysheva, O.G. Eyewitnesses about the Tunguska cosmic body. Acta Geod Geophys 48, 1–7 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40328-012-0002-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40328-012-0002-4