Tunguska Essay

2436 Words5 Pages

The vastness of space holds many mysteries. One such mystery has puzzled scientists for hundreds of years; that of the abiogenesis of life. Exactly how can such complex organic structures blossom from nothing more than large chunks of elementally simplistic rock?

On June 30th, 1908, another of these universal mysteries (although one that can be considered philosophically smaller) released 10-15 megatons of energy in a blast that devastated large swathes of the Tunguska forest region in Russia. Many theories exist regarding the cause of this impact, known as the Tunguska Event, ranging from notions as grounded as volcanic gas vent explosions to ideas as enticingly fanciful as a UFO crash, government bomb testing, or even secret experiments conducted by Nikola Tesla. Most scientists have settled on the idea that the event was the result of a celestial body breaking through earths upper atmosphere and exploding before impact with the surface. The idea that asteroids, comets or other space debris could have brought elements necessary for life to our planet is not a new one, and whilst most research on Tunguska focuses on what exactly the celestial body was, the same research informs us whether a 'life by impact', or pseudo-panspermia, hypothesis could be somewhat veridical.
This piece will look at several points integral to this assessment, given written weight according to what I feel their importance in the debate stands at. Firstly I will explain pseudo-panspermia as a concept, before assessing whether information gleaned from Tunguska research can support this concept. I will then discuss problems with interpretation of the Tunguska evidence, before concluding that Tunguska as an isolated incident is not enough to verify the ...

... middle of paper ...

...sult of inconclusiveness regarding Tunguska would be rash, in much the same way that affirming the theory based solely on Tunguska would be. Sections 3 does not allow for the implications discussed in section 2 to carry as much weight as they otherwise would. Limitations exist within this piece, as there is less space than necessary to comprehensively cover the event and much of the research necessary to do so is in Russian. In summary, it is perhaps noteworthy that what Tunguska may tell us can be cogently rebutted by what we still don't know about the event, and on that basis I cannot convincingly state that Tunguska makes for a convincing case regarding pseudo-panspermia. I feel it may be necessary, given the abundance and value of research, to look at other impact events for answers to the mystery of life, at least until the mystery of Tunguska can be solved.

More about Tunguska Essay

Open Document