It was 100 years ago today

[OGC]

The Tunguska event the Russian wilderness northwest of Lake Baikal. (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0630)

Can you imagine the media frenzy that would happen if this type of thing happened today ?

[Alice S. Fuzzybutt]

Can you imagine the media frenzy that would happen if this type of thing happened today ?




Maybe a week or two after the fact. Russians won't admit to anything outright

[Foster]

Maybe a week or two after the fact. Russians won't admit to anything outright

maybe when chenobol had its problem there was a time warp and the explosion was sent back in time to Tunguska 1908.

[jauble]

maybe when chenobol had its problem there was a time warp and the explosion was sent back in time to Tunguska 1908.

It was also pre-internet and tv news and satellite imagery I dont think communists would have anything to do with it.

edit: foster brought up commies and changed his mind. I stand by my statement.

[booster11373]

It was also pre-internet and tv news and satellite imagery I dont think communists would have anything to do with it.

It was pre-revolution Russia the Tzar was in charge

[Alice S. Fuzzybutt]

The OP asked what the media frenzy would have been like TODAY. Old habits die hard. The Russians would keep it a secret as long as they could.

[Foster]

It was also pre-internet and tv news and satellite imagery I dont think communists would have anything to do with it.

edit: foster brought up commies and changed his mind. I stand by my statement.

I should have said it was pre-iron curtain; they weren't in "keep it quiet mode" yet.

[OGC]

An explosion of this size would easily be detected around the world almost immediately now. Russia may block people from investigating it, but with satellite imaging and seismographs, there would still be plenty to stir up interest. Or maybe just enough to get the tabloids to start speculating.

[jauble]

I should have said it was pre-iron curtain; they weren't in "keep it quiet mode" yet.

Fair enough...I was just saying that we could catch that one even if they were trying to cover it up.

[scottinnj]

I blame Rasputin

http://sci-fi-guys.com/wp-content/uploads/rasputin.a.gif

He was into wizardry.

[Foster]

I blame Rasputin

http://sci-fi-guys.com/wp-content/uploads/rasputin.a.gif

He was into wizardry.

Maybe Tunguska is the secret loaction of Hogwarts.

[Devo37]

It was 100 years ago today

Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play?

[booster11373]

The Soviets didnt send anyone to investigate untill 1923!

[OGC]

Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play?




I figured this was coming. I'm sort of surprised it took 12 posts to show up. :clap:

[Devo37]

The Tunguska event the Russian wilderness northwest of Lake Baikal. (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0630)



also 100 years ago today: the SOS Distress call. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4244924.ece)

[Foster]

The Soviets didnt send anyone to investigate untill 1923!

There was a lot going on then. The Royal Family was busy pissing off the common folks enough to get themselves shot, and Rasputin was constatly getting murdered then coming back to life.

[OGC]

also 100 years ago today: the SOS Distress call. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4244924.ece)



That was 100 years ago tomorrow. Get your facts straight. Or at least cross the dateline before you post it again. :wink:

[Devo37]

That was 100 years ago tomorrow. Get your facts straight. Or at least cross the dateline before you post it again. :wink:

damn me, and my anglophilic reading habits!!! :wallbash:

[Coach]

I thought it was Tesla's Death ray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
Which he tested earlier in the day.

[booster11373]

I hate the Tsar I'm glad he was killed, Ive made a case that the shitty state of the world today at least in my opinion is a direct result of that douche failing to allow Russia to become a constitutional democracy after the 1905 revolution

Im Nicolas Im a doucheie autocrat!!!

[Alice S. Fuzzybutt]

The Soviets didnt send anyone to investigate untill 1923!


Actually, Leonid Kulik, a mineralologist, was sent there in 1921 to investigate the area.

Kulik, what a gay-ass name! :tongue:

[TheMojoPin]

The OP asked what the media frenzy would have been like TODAY. Old habits die hard. The Russians would keep it a secret as long as they could.

There's no way they could have hiden something like this. The light from the blast was actually bright enough to allow people to read at night in London for a couple days afterwards.

I think the theory of a freakish, massive methane explosion makes the most sense. There's simply no evidence of any kind of an impact from an object from space.

[Coach]

I blame Rasputin

http://sci-fi-guys.com/wp-content/uploads/rasputin.a.gif

He was into wizardry.Anyone who takes poisoning, shooting, and throwing in a river, to kill...freaks me out!!

[TheMojoPin]

It was 100 years ago today...

...Sgt. Lenin taught the band to play!!!

[Mike Teacher]

Nice to see so many interested in things Tunguska; I met David Levy and Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker [they discovered Shoemaker-Levy 9, the comet that impacted Jupiter] at a conference hosted by Carl Sagan. The pic of me and Sagan I splatter everywhere is just before the conference.

Anyway, Tunguska was brought up, and when youre in a room full of comet scientists and astronomers, you find out this is still a hot topic; what exactly vaporized over the Tunguska forest. When you hit air at that speed it the same as hitting rock in terms of consequence for the projectile, be it icy comet or stony asteroid/meteor, the energy literally vaporizes whatevers coming in at a certain size, if bigger it can reach the ground and you get your Meteor Craters out in um.... Flagstaff AZ? That sucker is something like two miles across and several hundred feet deep. Even bigger and you get an Extinction.

These events are popular because we see theyve shaped the history of life on the planet; there have been several times in Earth's history when almost everything died. The Permian extinction killed 90%+, the K/T less but still enough to wipe out the dinos and let little shrew like creatures evolve into Humanity.

And if you think it hasnt happened recently something with the force greater then the Hiroshima bombed exploded over the Med sea in 2002. If it had vaporized over a city? Well, at least it would be quick, painless, and little/no warning.

I think the fascination is that studying it shows we really are just a rock and there are other rocks out there, and kinetic energy turns grains of sand into bombs and big rocks into planet killers, and it has happened before, and no sci-fi, it absolutely will happen again, and with present technology, we cant do shit about it. Nada.

They even make Shit Sandwich movies out of the scenario.

=

Oh! Why I brought up Sagan. He mentioned if a Tunguska Event had happened in the 1970s or 1980s, the technology was such that one or both of the Superpowers could have easily mistaken it for a first strike: incoming object at hypersonic speed, impact, death, fire, mushroom cloud... and launched a salvo in 'defense'.

So yes a Media Frenzy is one possible consequence, another is nuclear war.

I'm shutting up; I could do three hours on this alone.

[PapaBear]

I could do three hours on this alone.
Where were you when the Virus needed you last night?

[jauble]

Gotta love Mike the Teacher.

[Coach]

Where were you when the Virus needed you last night?Doing impressions of a saw mill probably.

[jauble]

Doing impressions of a saw mill probably.

that was funny

[Recyclerz]

And, as Mike has indicated, it has friends. :glurps:

If you need something else to worry about in your life, check out this article about a scientist at Columbia who posits these things happen a lot more frequently than has been previously understood.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/asteroids

[Coach]

that was funny
An Olde Tyme refrence. Always funny.

[Alice S. Fuzzybutt]

There's no way they could have hiden something like this. The light from the blast was actually bright enough to allow people to read at night in London for a couple days afterwards.

No they wouldn't have been able to have hidden it in this day and age.

It's all about DENIAL DENIAL DENIAL.

Let's look at the Kursk incident. At first the Russians said all were lost and initially refused help from other countries. I forget how it actually went down but The Norwegian and British naval forces tried to help. It was later found out that some sailors survived initially.

Regardless if it's a MAJOR light show with a Queen soundtrack, if it happens on Russian soil it will be weeks before they admit to it.

My main point is, and always has been, the Russians will never OWN UP until they HAVE TO.

[Mike Teacher]

Where were you when the Virus needed you last night?

All they have to do is give me the call and I'm there. I need about.... zero prep time to do three hours live.

Alice is correct, even with Chernobyl they denied it, even though seismometers picked up something instantly and then atmospheric research planes soon started picking up the fallout from the radioactive plume released when reactor #4 exploded.

[A.J.]

The Tunguska event the Russian wilderness northwest of Lake Baikal. (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0630)

Can you imagine the media frenzy that would happen if this type of thing happened today ?


"George Bush doesn't care about Siberian people."

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Entertainment/ht_Kanye_West_070912_ssh.jpg

[OGC]

...And if you think it hasnt happened recently something with the force greater then the Hiroshima bombed exploded over the Med sea in 2002. If it had vaporized over a city? Well, at least it would be quick, painless, and little/no warning...

I know that wikipedia isn't the most reliable source around but I imagine it would get most of the details correct about the 2002 Mediterranean event. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Mediterranean_Event)

Wikipedia also cites 2 other similar (but smaller) events.

Vitim river basin in Russia in 2002 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitim_event)

Cando, Spain 1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cando_event)

I consider myself a fairly in the know person but I don't remember hearing anything about these events. (perhaps it's my middle aged teflon memory) I guess this might hint towards an answer for my original post. Three similar (though much much smaller) events happened in the last 15 years, two of them closer to more populated areas, and there wasn't (as far as I am aware) any media frenzy.

[booster11373]

Didnt a nuke go off in the South Atlantic sometime in the 70's after the atmospheric test ban? supposedly it was a co-op South African and Isreali thing, but both the US USSR where caught with there pants down and dindt see it coming that could have started WW3

Or am I just remembering a comic book I read? you tell me!

[Furtherman]

Can you imagine the media frenzy that would happen if this type of thing happened today ?


Like Mike The Teacher said, it will happen again. Odds are good we'll see one in our lifetime.

The Soviets didnt send anyone to investigate untill 1923!

That's because Tunguska, was quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. It would be decades before any kind of civilization moved in close to the blast zone.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/image07/070705lakecheko.jpg

I think the theory of a freakish, massive methane explosion makes the most sense. There's simply no evidence of any kind of an impact from an object from space.

There is an expedition to the site underway this year. Lake Cheko, at the blast site, may have been formed by the meteorite when it hit. A survey of the lake bottom should confirm the theory that it was a meteorite or comet.

[TheMojoPin]

Like Mike The Teacher said, it will happen again. Odds are good we'll see one in our lifetime.



That's because Tunguska, was quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. It would be decades before any kind of civilization moved in close to the blast zone.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/image07/070705lakecheko.jpg



There is an expedition to the site underway this year. Lake Cheko, at the blast site, may have been formed by the meteorite when it hit. A survey of the lake bottom should confirm the theory that it was a meteorite or comet.

I think it's the newest issue of American Scientist where they talk about how studies of the lake and the sediment levels actually contrast with the idea it was an object from space. That and the lake already existed before the blast.

[Furtherman]

I think it's the newest issue of American Scientist where they talk about how studies of the lake and the sediment levels actually contrast with the idea it was an object from space. That and the lake already existed before the blast.

It was Scientific American. The lake may have existed before the blast but the lake bottom was a funnel shape, unlike all the other flat bottom lakes in Siberia.

The Tunguska Mystery 100 Years Later
Finding a piece of the elusive cosmic body that devastated a Siberian forest a century ago could help save the earth in the centuries to come (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-tunguska-mystery-100-years-later)

Astrophysicists have since created numerical simulations of the Tunguska event to try to decide among the competing hypotheses. The airburst of a stony asteroid is the leading interpretation.

The funnellike shape of Lake Cheko, in contrast, resembles those of known impact craters of similar size—for instance, the so-called Odessa crater, which was created 25,000 years ago by the impact of a small asteroid in what is now Odessa, Tex.

In short... the lake is suspect and the answer will probably be found there.

[booster11373]

I blame the Blacks!

[Mike Teacher]

As to extinctions and round holes on Earth, some say it wasnt impacts at all for some; environmental/geologic events, above mentioned gas discharges from deep earth. For extinctions, that or some unknown disease, some unknown screwup in the food chain... lotsa things could wipe out life...

But amazing how deep some extinctions were [google Permian Extinction] and how we bounced back so tenaciously each time. Life is a lot more probable then I ever would have imagined.

One of the best stories I ever read:

Commercial flight; clear skies, unlimited visibility, big plane full of people and the radios chatter starts 'We are observing an object, very bright' lots of planes see it, and for one flight, it's approaching from below and from behind, its coming UP at them

The aircraft watched this ball of light fly UP and out into space and NORAD or whoever confirmed and tracked it...

Seems a meteor/asteroid/comet skimmed low right past earth, fast enough not to get caught by our gravity, so those who were at the 'right' location did indeed see it fly from below them and up past them and out back into space as it left its close encounter with Earth.

The exactness is sketcky above, again from memory, but def happened, Skeptic/Skeptical Enquirer magazine uses it as an example of something that can seem very very UFO-ish, seem very unexplainable at first, but still be *just* a natural phenomenon.

[ahhdurr]

It was pre-revolution Russia the Tzar was in charge

Check out the big brain on Brad.

I've never heard of this story - thanks .. how bizarre. ronfez.net makes me a better person.

[furie]

Scientists believe they have solved the century-old mystery of an explosion that devastated a vast region of Earth - thanks to the space shuttle. (http://news.skymania.com/2009/06/tunguska-impact-riddle-solved-at-last.html)

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