[meteorite-list] Book Review: The Tunguska Fireball

[Pete Pete]

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/book_review_tunguska_fireball.html?2982005

Book Review: The Tunguska Fireball
Summary - (Aug 29, 2005) Dream up an hypothesis and envelop it with 
supporting evidence and you're well on the way to contributing to the 
scientific process. Given that nature surrounds us with a veritable nirvana 
of wonders, this reasoning process serves us well. A case in point - many 
years ago, bright flashes in the sky, followed by powerful explosions, 
teased our imaginations and brain power then and today. Surendra Verma in 
his book The Tunguska Fireball plays part detective, part historian and part 
scientist in presenting some highly speculative yet nevertheless plausible 
reasons for this natural wonder. Scientific processes by their nature are 
based on fact, but read this and you can judge for yourself how close 
imagination is its parody.
Full Story -
The Tunguska fireball occured in 1908 in the further reaches of Russia. 
Bright lights, loud sounds and searing heat signalled this event. Cutting 
edge measuring devices detected anomalies as far away as Britian, while most 
people of Europe had the pleasure of seeing a fairy tale like night time 
sky. Years later, some ground explorers loped into action to find a 
remarkably wide- spread landscape of shattered trees and burnt surfaces. 
Further, the tress fell in a pattern as to suggest being blown down by an 
extremely powerful force. However, given the inhospitable climate of the 
region, the assessment was brief and decades separated subsequent 
investigators. Further, given the political climate of the times, almost 50 
years passed before international researchers arrived. Nonetheless, with the 
fertile imagination with which humans are blessed, we have taken what 
information was available, together with our growing cadre of knowledge in 
astrophysics, to raise a plethora of rationale for this fireball.

Surendra Verma presents his compilation of the events and possible causes in 
a smoothly flowing and succintly detailed rendition. He begins by repeating 
the known facts and figures. People, times, and places fill out the 
background for the reader and stress the challenges in solving this mystery. 
Much seems to stem from the brevity of facts and the inaccesibility of the 
region. In a loosely chronological sequence, Verma pins together the details 
in a fashion more reminiscent of note taking than of novel writing. He 
appears to stay to the facts and takes little literary excess with hyperbole 
of either facts or reactions. However, the reader can easily make their own 
decuctions. For instance, I was fascinated to learn of the small amount of 
interest shown by the locals. Instead of acknowledging the fireball and 
learning from it, their response was to treat it as a sort of mythical 
situation that was better left alone. Nevertheless, given that there always 
seems to be some overly curious types, people did consider this event and 
Verma does bring their observations to the fore.

Once he has established this basis, Verma than treats us to the smorgasbord 
of hypotheses that arose. He doesn't solve it himself, as suggested by the 
sub-title. Rather, he seems to have two other purposes. One is to 
demonstrate that many natural processes give rise to similar effects. People 
saw lights, heard explosions and felt heat. The source might have been 
asteroids, comets, nuclear explosions, anti-matter, mirror matter, black 
holes, aliens, and so on. The other purpose he provides is to discuss the 
natural processes themselves. These tidbits will keep the up and coming 
scientiest curious for many pages. Verma usually isolates each process in 
individual chapters. As an example, the chapter on asteroids discusses their 
typical composition, locations within in our solar system and frequency of 
striking planets. Occassional asides mention the possibility of a companion 
star for our sun that occasionaly redirects asteroids toward Earth. At the 
book's end, Verma does sum up the data and selects his most likely suspect, 
just like the second last chapter in a mystery novel.

With the combination of scientific and historical background, Verma presents 
an easy to read treatise on both the fireball and on physical phenomena that 
could cause such a huge effect upon the flora and fauna on the Earth. 
Sometimes the description of the science seems to overshadow the event. For 
instance, a large section describes the extinction of dinosaurs. True, this 
extinction event, in ways, is just as mysterious as the fireball. However, 
asteroids and comets were already discussed. The discovery of the Chicxculub 
crater and its implications seems superlative to the main theme. Given the 
scarceness of data, there is no surprise on this relative emphasis on the 
science.

The fireball that blew into Russia's north may be due to an understood 
physical event. However, as Surendra Verama shows us in his book Tunguska 
Fireball we are not exactly sure which event. Much in its history remains 
obscure, while each of many popular hypotheses rely on contradictory points. 
Nevertheless, as with any good mystery, there are lots of suspects and 
enough questions to keep contemplating and enjoy perusing within.