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The Sky Has Split Apart - The Cosmic Mystery of the Century
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"The Sky Has Split Apart!"
The Cosmic Mystery of the Century
by Professor Roy A. Gallant
Southworth Planetarium
University of Southern Maine
The explosions were heard in the early morning hours of June 30, 1908. It was a drama that has occurred
countless times in Earth's history, and that is sure to play again.
Those Tungus tribesmen and Russian fur traders who happened to glance into the southeastern Siberian
sky that fateful morning must have been startled to see a fireball streaking through the atmosphere
toward their trading post of Vanavara and leaving a trail of light some 800 kilometers long. The object,
whatever its nature, was approaching from an azimuth of 115 degrees and descending at an entry angle
of 30 to 35 degrees above the horizon. Their gaze followed the bright fireball as it continued along a
northwestward trajectory until it seemed about to disappear over the horizon. Then it shattered in a rapid
series of cataclysmic explosions lasting about half a second over a distance of 15 to 20 kilometers.
The site was centered on 101 E by 62 N near the Stony Tunguska River 92 kilometers north of
Vanavara. According to calculations, the object shattered at an altitude of 7.6 kilometers2 and became
the first such cosmic visitor to strike Earth in the life time of civilized man.
According to an eyewitness in Vanavara:
"The sky split apart and a great fire appeared. It became so hot that one couldn't stand it. There was a
deafening explosion [and my friend] S. Semenov was blown over the ground across a distance of three
sazhens [six meters]. As the hot wind passed by, the ground and the huts trembled. Sod was shaken
loose from our ceilings and glass was splintered out of the window frames."
What was this cosmic visitor?
Some have suggested it was a black hole. Others have wondered if it was a piece of anti-matter. A
Japanese UFO group (Sakura), headed by Kozo Kowai, are convinced that it was the explosion of the
nuclear power plant of an errant vehicle belonging to extraterrestrials. A number of science-fiction
accounts have degraded the event to fantasy. Some critics hold that the entire history of nearly five
decades of field work represents little more than a chain of mistakes. Most scientists disagree and point
to a comet or an asteroid being the cosmic culprit.
http://www.galisteo.com/tunguska/docs/splitsky.html (1 of 6)12/5/2005 4:30:58 PM