In Searching for Comet P/Tunguska-1908
Protecting the Earth against Collisions with Asteroids and Comet Nuclei, In: A. M. Finkelstein, W. F. Huebner, V. A. Shor (Eds) Proceedings of the International Conference “Asteroid-Comet Hazard-2009”, StP: Nauka, 189–195 (2010)
Keywords: Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), Near Earth Objects (NEOs), Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), Tunguska, horizontal turn of the trajectory, New Explosive Cosmogony of minor bodies, explosion of a part of the comet nucleus, comet nucleus ice, products of electrolysis, detonation, kinetic energy imparted, effect of a high-altitude explosion, the Earth's atmosphere, a heliocentric orbit, non-gravitational effects
About the paper Full textAbstract
The reason for the horizontal turn of the Tunguska1908 bolide trajectory remains difficult to understand. It finds explanation, however, in the New Explosive Cosmogony of minor bodies as having been caused by an explosion of a part ( up to 10 g) of the comet nucleus whose ices contained products of their electrolysis, 2H + O. In detonation, this part was repelled from the more massive unexploded nucleus remnant, changed the direction of its own motion by ~10 and imparted its kinetic energy, in expanding and slowing down, to the air in producing an effect of a high-altitude explosion. On passing through the Earth's atmosphere, the unexploded remnant again entered a heliocentric orbit (the Vernadskiy's hypothesis, 1932). A search for this comet, /Tunguska1908, among the 6077 known NEAs shows the 2005 NB56 object to be the most appropriate candidate for a number of its parameters (its size is 170 m, = 2.106 y, = 0.473 and = 6.8). Back integration of its orbit without allowing for non-gravitational effects suggests that it had passed the Earth on June 27, 1908 at a distance of 0.0659 AU. It is quite possible that a proper inclusion of even fairly weak non-gravitational forces might make its orbit consistent with parameters of the Tunguska bolide