The mystery continues: Russian scientists disprove the myth of the “Tunguska meteor”

The Tunguska explosion was a very high-powered aerial explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya River in Tunguska (Evenkia, Siberia, Russia) at 7:17 on June 30, 1908. The detonation, similar to that of a high-powered thermonuclear weapon, has been attributed to a comet or an asteroid. However, researchers now say it was not the case.

The survivors of the area affected by the explosion described it as a giant mushroom that was rising through the air. The animals fled, and the tents of the tunguses located more than 50 km away flew through the air.

Until this day, no one has been able to explain as to what exactly exploded over Russia.

(Tungusic peoples are the peoples who speak Tungusic languages. They inhabit Eastern Siberia and Northeast Asia, and are distinct from and not related to the Turkic and Mongolian people. During the 17th century, the Tsardom of Russia was expanding east across Siberia, and into Tungusic-speaking lands, ending with the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk. The first published description of a Tungusic people to reach beyond Russia into the rest of Europe was by the Dutch traveler Isaac Massa in 1612. He passed along information from Russian reports after his stay in Moscow.)

The Tunguska phenomenon eventually produced more than 30 hypotheses and theories about what happened.

The detonation, similar to that of a high-powered thermonuclear weapon, has been attributed to a comet or an asteroid.

Because no fragment has ever been recovered is believed that what exploded over Russia was a comet made of ICE.

As it did not reach Earth’s surface, no crater or astrobleme was produced.

However, 108 years later, the phenomenon of the Tunguska meteorite remains a mystery.

Until now it was maintained that the explosion of a meteor near the Podkámennaya River, in Siberia, was what eventually formed Lake Cheko.

However, Russian scientists proved that this lake could not be a crater since it is at least 280 years old.

Trees burned and knocked down as a result of the Tunguska event. 

The Tunguska explosion devastated an area of 2,150 square kilometers of forest, broke windows and knocked down people who were within a radius of 400 kilometers away from the impact zone.

In the following days, the inhabitants of Europe witnessed a series of strange phenomena, such as luminous clouds, colorful sunsets and unusual lights at night.

The European media then claimed that it was either a UFO incident or a volcanic eruption.

However, political events in imperial Russia prevented further investigation of this strange phenomenon.

19 years later, an expedition led by Russian scientist Leonid Kulik arrived in Tunguska to examine the site of the explosion.

However, the researchers failed to discover any traces of the meteorites.

Kulik explained that this was because the extraterrestrial matter burned completely when entering the atmosphere.

Much later, in 2007, a scientific team from the University of Bologna (Italy), led by Luca Gasperini, proposed a theory according to which Lake Cheko was the supposed crater left by the Tunguska meteorite due to its unusual shape and depth.

Gasperini claimed that the existence of this lake was unknown before 1908.

However, in July 2016, a team of scientists from Siberia managed to figure out the exact age of Lake Cheko and stated that, because the Tunguska region was practically not on the maps before the 20th century, the lake could exist before the Tunguska event.

To determine the age of the lake through biochemical analyzes, samples of the bottom were taken.

Recently, colleagues from the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian delegation of the Russian Academy of Sciences have completed the radioscopic analysis of the samples obtained, according to a report published on the website of the Russian Geographical Society.

According to the results of the analysis, the lake is at least 280 years old, which shows that the Cheko is much older than the Tunguska event.

 The results of this study were published in a specialized scientific journal on July 30, 2017, said in an interview with Sputnik, Denis Rogozin, a researcher at the Siberian delegation of the Academy of Sciences.

With this new discovery, Russian scientists have disproved the international community’s last hope to clarify the circumstances surrounding the strange explosion that shuck Tunguska and everything else in a 400-kilometer radius—one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in history.