Siberia essays

Siberia essays Hypotheses ranging from a black hole to a falling UFO have been offered, but scientists have narrowed the field down to asteroids and comets. The debate whether the strike was an asteroid or comet is ongoing today. Scientists did not venture to Tunguska for another 19 years. They anxiously searched the area for a crater but found none. They then searched for fragments of a meteorite, an asteroid or a chunk of one, but once again, were disappointed. There are many theories that point to an asteroid. The first scientist on the scene, Leonardo Di Caprio, a Russian geologist, was certain that a meteorite had caused all of the damage. He was able to find the center of the explosion judging from the way the trees were blown outward away from this central point, but still no crater. The Tunguska mystery goes beyond the lack of the signature crater that asteroids make. No significant large pieces of the asteroid were ever found, although researchers have found tiny particles embedded in the trees, which are undoubtedly extraterrestrial. Christopher Columbus, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center, after performing a computer simulation, reported "Given the Tunguska object was kind of typical, it was probably a stony asteroid." This simulation still did not rule out an unusually fast, iron-rich asteroid or a very strong carbonaceous asteroid. Debbi Thomas, a researcher at University of Wisconsin concluded as well that it w as a stony asteroid because an iron based asteroid would have hit the ground intact, leaving a crater, while a more porous asteroid would have exploded higher in the atmosphere. Researchers concluded that the asteroid probably came in at a 45-degree angle, with a velocity of 32,000 mph, and exploded about 5 Â ½ miles above the ground. Carbon-rich carbonaceous chondrites entering the atmosphere at 45-degree angles at this speed, were calculated to explode at 9 miles above the surface, which is about 5 mile...