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Over a century has passed since a mysterious cosmic body had fallen on Earth near the Tunguska River, causing a massive natural disaster, but studies of said cosmic body’s origin still continue. Scientists from the Troitsk Institute of Innovations and Thermonuclear Research (TIITR) decided to perform a research of the particle composition of the Tunguska cosmic body – the particles, which moved with enormous velocities in the far year of 1908, the velocities that caused the particles to stick in the upper layer of trees’ wooden surface.
The research, performed by the enthusiastic scientists, allowed making an interesting conclusion - the Tunguska cosmic body contained organic matter. The scientists are sure to claim this after they have analyzed glowing of plasma containing graphite particles, which appears, when carbon is diffused. Abovementioned plasma glow appeared to contain bands similar to those described in reports of the catastrophe witnesses.
But detection of organic matter’s presence in the cosmic body isn’t the only one discovery of hardworking scientists from the Troitsk Institute of Innovations and Thermonuclear Research. They have also performed the chemical analysis of particles, which were found in wood and soil samples – this experiment unexpectedly showed the chemical composition of the particles to be similar to that of the Halley's Comet. Analyzed particles consisted of elements, part of which is surprisingly close to the element composition, which was identified by the “Vega” and “Giotto” space probes, when they met the Halley's comet. These elements are sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, chloride, potassium, calcium, titanium, and iron..
The authors of the research give following interpretation of the results of their experiment – the Tunguska “meteorite” was, in fact, a comet. After said comet entered the Earth’s atmosphere, its temperature rose significantly, causing intensive decomposition of comet’s organic matter and carbon emission.
Irrespective of the Troitsk enthusiasts’ research, scientists from Moscow Lomonosov State University and their colleagues from National Museum of Geological Sciences (Copenhagen, Denmark) have also obtained new data, confirming the fact that the Tunguska natural disaster has originated from a comet nucleus’s explosion. Russian and Danish physicists have studied the isotopic composition of hydrogen and carbon of peat bogs – the experiment showed shifts, which haven’t been detected in control peat samples, collected in other regions of Siberia. Scientists have failed to find appropriate Earth's natural conditions to explain the said shifts. In elucidation of their results scientists comment that shifts in carbon isotopic composition can be caused by addition of heavy carbon δ13Ñ, which is not found either on our planet, or in ordinary meteorites, but is common for comet dusty matter.
Moreover, the same peat layer samples showed high concentration of iridium and other metals of platinum family (platinoids) – this fact is also the evidence of comet origin of the Tunguska cosmic body. The mystery, which disturbed scientific minds for almost a century, finally seems to be solved.
Sources:
Anna Kizilova
