#TUNGUSTA METEORITE SERIES#

Longo's team plans to return to Lake Cheko next summer, close to the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska Event. 'If the fragment was traveling slowly enough, there's actually a good chance (Longo's team) will unearth some meteorite material,' Harris said.

#TUNGUSTA METEORITE SERIES#

A site in Poland also exists, he explained, where a large meteor exploded and created a series of small lakes.

Some were 20 meters (66 feet) across,' Harris said. 'In 1947, the Russian Sikhote-Alin meteorite created 100 small craters. Harris agreed that physics could work against Longo's explanation, but did note that similar events - with impact craters - have been documented all over the world. That only a fragment of the main explosion reached the ground and made a relatively small crater, without creating a larger main crater, seems contradictory to Morrison. 'We know from the entry physics that the largest and most energetic objects penetrate deepest,' said David Morrison, an astronomer with NASA's Ames Research Center. Some researchers, however, are less confident in the team's conclusions. It would lay the question to rest whether or not Tunguska was a comet or asteroid.' 'It would be thrilling to dig up chunks of the meteor body, if they can manage to.

Longo and his team 'are among the recognized authorities on Tunguska' in the world, Harris told. 'I was impressed by their work and I don't think it's something you can wave off,' said Harris, who was not involved in the research. Alan Harris, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said the proposal by Longo's team isn't one of them. They think this could be where the ground was compacted by an impact or where part of the meteorite itself lies: The object, if found, could be more than 30 feet in diameter and weigh almost 1,700 tons - the weight of about 42 fully-loaded semi-trailers.ДЇrom a UFO crash to a wandering black hole, wild (and wildly unsupported) explanations for the Tunguska event have been proposed. 'To really find out if this is an impact crater,' Longo said, 'we need a core sample 10 meters (33 feet) into the bottom' in order to investigate a spot where the team detected a 'reflecting' anomaly with their seismic instruments. Still, Longo explained the samples are inconclusive of a meteorite impact.

Going a step further, Longo's team dove to the bottom and took 6-foot core samples, revealing fresh mud-like sediment on top of 'chaotic deposits' beneath. With the advent of better sonar andcomputer technologies, he explained, the lake took shape. 'Expeditions in the 1960s concluded the lake was not an impact crater, but their technologies were limited,' Longo said. While sonar-scanning the lake's topography, they were struck by its cone-like features. The findings are detailed in this month?s online version of the journal Terra Nova.Дuring a 1999 expedition, Longo's team didn't plan to investigate Lake Cheko as an impact crater, but rather to look for meteoroid dust in its submerged sediments.

Tungusta meteorite