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Meteorite Hunter: The Search for Siberian Meteorite Craters

by Roy A. Gallant

" ... The Russians’ conquering hero of Siberia was Yermak Timofeevich, leader of a band of warriors called Cossacks. The name comes from a Tartar word meaning “daredevil,” one who has shunned all ties with his social class and becomes a free spirit as ready to fight as gulp down a measure of vodka. The Cossacks came into their own in the 1500s when they avoided the Tartar yoke of feudalism and serfdom by fleeing to the “Wild Field” where, according to Rasputin, “They founded their own settlements, elected chieftains called atamans, established laws, and began a free, new life that was not subordinate to any khanate or czardom.” Nevertheless, to survive they eventually came to serve the czar and tirelessly vented their patriotic fervor by defending Russia against her perceived enemies, be they Turks or Tartars. Their stronghold was the land forming the lower reaches of the Don and Volga rivers. It was the Cossacks, under the leadership of Yermak, who played an almost supernatural role in opening up Siberia. They were a proud and ruthless lot of adventurers who let nothing stand in the way of their pursuit of wealth. But there were others before them.

Who were the first Siberians, the mystery people who inhabited the forests and plains east of the great Rock, or Ural Mountains? Foreigners in ancient and medieval times reading Herodotus’s History were told that “at the foot of some high mountains dwell people who are bald from birth and have flat noses and oblong chins [and who] have goats’ feet; and others living beyond them sleep six months out of the year.” As late as the 1500s, one Russian written source related old tales describing the Siberians as a people who ostensibly die to pass the harsh winter months and do not reawaken until spring.

Siberia, from a Tartar word meaning “sleeping land,” is a giant only slightly smaller than the United States. It extends eastward across northern Asia from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. From west to east in the north it borders first the Barents, then the Kara, then the Laptev, and finally the East Siberian seas across the Arctic. It sprawls southward, first across the tundra, then through the great north coniferous forest biome called the taiga, and finally over the steppes of Central Asia to its southern borders with Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China ..."

-- from the Preface, 'Meteorite Hunter'

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For the last ten years Prof. Roy A. Gallant has been digging around the notoriously treacherous Siberian wastelands so (thankfully!) you and I don't have to.

His mission: To uncover the mystery surrounding what's known today as the Tunguska Event, the 1908 meteorite impact that was so great it exploded with a force 2000 times the size of the Hiroshima blast, its shockwave circling the earth twice.

But what was the object? A comet's nucleus? Or a stony asteroid? Braving the region's natural predators (from bears to blood-thirsty bugs), Gallant, using research never before seen outside Russia, attempts to find answers in a book that is part history, part travelogue and part scientific inquiry.

SPACE

 

SPACE.com: What's more dangerous, Siberian mosquitoes or rocks from space?

 

Roy A. Gallant: I'll take the mosquitoes. At least you can hit back.

 

Because the 1908 meteor exploded above ground, little is known about the object. What new insights can you give us? Was it a comet or an asteroid?

 

Not really any new insights into the cause of the event, more a matter of accumulating evidence tending to support the notion that the exploding object was a comet nucleus. This is the collective opinion of most Russian investigators; although some say they cannot confidently rule out a stony asteroid. Although computer modeling can be helpful, it is not a reliable substitute for the types of field investigations I report in my book.

 

Based on your research, what did the event look like to an observer standing at a (barely) safe distance?

 

There was blinding light from the explosion--violent flash accompanied by an extremely hot and violent wind, and there was a pressure wave strong enough to knock people down. Add to that thunderous noise sounding like batteries of artillery fire. Then the expansive forest burst into flame. Many close to the blast were temporarily deafened, struck dumb and speechless, and fell to the ground in a state of shock.

 

What would happen if a similar event occurred over a metropolitan region?

 

If there had been a difference of one hour when the Tunguska object struck, it would have exploded over St. Petersburg and killed about 500,000 people.

 

Experts agree it's only a matter of time before a much larger object hits the planet. How worried are you about the survival of civilization?

 

I'm not at all worried since there's nothing I or any one else can do to prevent a planet-crunching asteroid a few kilometers in diameter from largely destroying the civilized world. It's a numbers game. We simply have no way of knowing when we'll be hit again. You read a lot of numbers--certain size asteroids striking Earth every 1000 or 50,000 or 500,000 years. If we haven't been hit for a long time, does that mean we are likely to be hit soon? Not necessarily. Anyone versed in probability theory can tell you that the past occurrence of the sum of seven turning up on the next dice toss has nothing whatever to do with the number of times seven has shown up in the previous 20 or so tosses.

 

Who are your heroes and how have they influenced your work?

 

I have many heroes in science, among them Charles Darwin and others like him who devoted a great part of their lives nurturing an old hypothesis and watching it evolve into theory, and eventually gain the status of scientific principle, all through their tireless and methodical collection of evidence. But science tends not to be done that way any more. Just turn to the title page of most major articles in the journals NATURE and SCIENCE and see the multiple by-lines, sometimes up to a dozen or so investigators. The new technologies in biology and physics, for example, are making a rarity out of the potential Darwins or a Copernicus.

 

What most upsets you about science or scientists?

 

There's nothing about science as a means of investigating the natural world that upsets me, even though a scientists' search for truth is bound to step on toes every now and then. For the most part, I think scientists are a pretty honest lot with well-defined goals. The scientists who do not fit that pattern are those who have sold out to the tobacco, nuclear, and certain other industries that try to convince us that their product or activity is perfectly safe, when they know just the opposite is true.

 

If you controlled a $1 billion foundation, what research effort would you fund?

 

Since a billion dollars isn't all that much money these days, I'd look for a relatively modest research effort, perhaps one directed more toward education rather than expensive hardware that might teach us how to mine an asteroid. In the field of astronomy, perhaps an effort to identify the misconceptions young people have about basic astronomy, space, space travel, the nature and probability of life elsewhere in the universe and the philosophical implications of its discovery. The second, and major, part of my program would be the preparation, publication, and distribution of educational materials at the junior high and up levels. Such materials would be relatively inexpensive, and their funds generated would go back into the program to make it largely self-sustaining.

 

Why should we spend money on space exploration over research into deadly diseases?

 

I see no reason why we shouldn't be doing both at the same time.

 

What is the most beautiful aspect to space?

 

Its silence and profoundly humbling aspect.


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