Swarm of fragments from the Tunguska event

ABSTRACT The Tunguska event took place on 1908 June 30. It was accompanied by an abnormal effect on the Earth's atmosphere, manifesting itself through ‘white nights’. These nights were associated with a dispersion of cosmic matter and the formation of a field of noctilucent clouds with a uniquely large size of over 10 million km2. However, overall, the cosmic matter was scattered over a territory of around 18 million km2. The most likely cause of the Tunguska event was the flux of fragments from the broken-up cometary object. The destruction of the cosmic body over Siberia, according to local inhabitants, was marked by numerous sound phenomena. After analysing eyewitness accounts, we can conclude that there were at least two major objects at the Tunguska event. The largest object exploded over the Taiga and caused damage to the forest. In addition, there were several dozen fragments of around 10 m in size, as well as many fragments of a smaller size.

Is a whole-mantle convection the key to solving the Tunguska 1908 problem?

<p>It is generally accepted that the Tunguska event in Siberia on 30 June, 1908 resulted from an explosion of cosmic body. However, there is no common agreement that this bolide really existed. Moreover, registered ultra low frequency (ULF) magnetic oscillations in Kiel, Germany on 27-30 June 1908 [1] had a correlate with the 'acoustic halo' (ULF) of a solar flare [2].</p><p>Large low-shear velocity provinces (LLSVPs) are linked to so-called blobs located atop the Earth's outer core [3]. It was shown the Earth's D"-layer core-mantle boundary was perturbed by both the solar flare and an anomalous lunar-solar tide during the Tunguska 1908 event [2]. Therefore, gravitational/magnetic lunar-solar perturbations could have triggered a plume/hotspot/LIP activation by means of a LLSVPs convection.</p><p>It was suggested that planetary hotspots chains are interconnected [4]. Indeed, during the Tunguska event brightest glows were observed over the Eifel volcano and more weak one over the Yellowstone volcano (both volcanoes are associated with hotspots) [5]. In addition, day by day a slowly lifting of the earth round the diabase stones was registered in Tasmania from 7 June till 29 June, 1908 [6]. This lifting was independent from atmospheric temperature variations and terminated as soon as a blast took place in the caldera of Tunguska paleovolcano on 30 June, 1908 [5, 6]. Observations in Tasmania remained a mystery for a long time. Recently scientists discovery the Cosgrove hotspot had moved from Eastern Australia to Tasmania [7]. In our opinion, the Cosgrove did not lose its activity fully 9 My ago as previously assumed: the Darwin crater in Tasmania originated about of 803 ka years and large volume ejected glasses in/around this small crater contradicts to the impact origin [5, 8]. Therefore, we consider the underground activation of Cosgrove hotspot as a cause of surface uplift in Tasmania from 7 to 30 June 1908.</p><p>As in Tasmania, moving mantle hotspots were registered in Eastern Siberia [9]. Probably, hotspots in Tasmania (near Pacific LLSVPs) and in the Tunguska basin (near Perm LLSVPs) are interconnected. Because common hotspots thermal energy was released in/by the Tunguska paleovolcano explosion on 30 June 1908, the fluidal pressure of the Cosgrove hotspot under Tasmania was reduced, resulting in the termination of surface uplift. Since meteorites could not have caused the earth uplift in Tasmania, the impact hypothesis for the Tunguska phenomenon can be excluded. All data favor an endogenic origin of this event due to lunar-solar perturbations and the whole-mantle convection.</p><p><span>[1]. Weber L. (1908) Astronomische Nachrichten, </span><strong><span>178</span></strong><span>, 23. [2]. German B. (2010) EPSC2010-430. [3]. Duncombe J. (2019) Eos, </span><strong><span>100</span></strong><span>. [4]. Courtillot V. (1990) ISBN 9780813722474, 401. [5]. German B. (2019) ISBNs 9783981952605(in Russian)/9783981952612(in English). [6]. Scott H. (1908) Nature, </span><strong><span>78</span></strong><span>(2025), 376. [7]. Davies D. (2015) Nature, </span><strong><span>525</span></strong><span>, 511. [8]. Haines P. (2005) Australian Journal Earth Sciences, </span><strong><span>52</span></strong><span>, 481. [9]. Rosen O. (2015) ISBN 9785902754954, 148.</span></p>

On the possibility of through passage of asteroid bodies across the Earth’s atmosphere

ABSTRACT We have studied the conditions of through passage of asteroids with diameters 200, 100, and 50 m, consisting of three types of materials – iron, stone, and water ice, across the Earth’s atmosphere with a minimum trajectory altitude in the range 10–15 km. The conditions of this passage with a subsequent exit into outer space with the preservation of a substantial fraction of the initial mass have been found. The results obtained support our idea explaining one of the long-standing problems of astronomy – the Tunguska phenomenon, which has not received reasonable and comprehensive interpretations to date. We argue that the Tunguska event was caused by an iron asteroid body, which passed through the Earth’s atmosphere and continued to the near-solar orbit.

Children of the Light: Gnostic Fiction and Gnostic Practice in Vladimir Sorokin’s Ice Trilogy

This paper offers a close reading of the contemporary Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin’s Ice trilogy and explores its deep roots in early gnostic spiritual movements of late antiquity, Russian esoteric philosophy and literature, and Western popular culture. Reflecting sources as varied as the Apocryphon of John, the Disney movie Escape to Witch Mountain, Russian New Age paganism, and esoteric Soviet science, these three interconnected novellas are based on the real-life “Tunguska event,” the great fireball that appeared over the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908, flattening more than 800 square miles of forest. Famous in ufo circles as the “Russian Roswell” and long a magnet for esoteric speculation, in Sorokin’s hands this probable meteor strike becomes the springboard for a contemporary gnostic fantasy in which a giant chunk of ice carries the spirits of 23,000 gnostic demiurges to earth, where they inhabit human bodies that they despise and seek only to reunite and return to their source. More than a simple postmodern parable of the seventy-year Soviet regime and post-Soviet societal excesses, Sorokin’s damning portrait of his “children of the Light” illuminates the deeper and darker currents of human nature, ethics, and spirituality.