Sun Warning: Asteroid Hazard is Grossly Underestimated

Andrey Zlobin, expert of the Center for Planetary Defense, candidate of technical sciences, mathematician

At the end of March, the media reported NASA's point of view, according to which there is no risk of collision of the Earth with asteroids for the next 100 years. The previously respected agency was already mistaken by publishing incorrect data on the Tunguska space disaster of 1908. In fact, the Tunguska space body flew in a completely different direction, which was indicated in their publications by NASA specialists. Such mistakes are forgivable for foreign scientists, since they know too little about the 1908 car. The lion's share of information for a hundred years of research on the Tunguska meteorite was published only in Russian, and a huge number of articles and books were not translated into other languages at all. However, for the same reason, foreign science incorrectly estimates the risk of asteroid hazard...

During the 1988 expedition to the site of the Tunguska disaster, I talked a lot with old-timers - Siberian scientists, who had been studying this phenomenon almost all their lives. This is what particularly caught my attention. D.F. Anfinogenov and L.I.Budaeva studied the Siberian and central newspapers located in the storehouses of the city of Tomsk, and made a conclusion about the increased fireball activity in the summer and autumn of 1908. I have in my hands a copy of the article, courtesy of D.F. Anfinogenov, and contains unique data on daytime and evening fireballs of that period. It turns out in 1908 over the European and Asian parts of Russia, as well as in adjacent territories, there were many impressive meteor events. So, for example, at the end of June the Kagarlyk meteorite fell near Kiev. In addition to Tunguska, sightings of fireballs were also recorded on 4, 28 and 30 July, 7, 11 and 25 August, 20 September, 19 October. The authors of the article emphasize that “the number of fireballs registered in the summer – autumn of 1908. in the middle latitudes of Eurasia, almost 5 times higher than the average annual number of fireballs observed in 1905-1907 and 1909-1913. "

Let me remind you of the dates of the largest fireballs in the last century: Tunguska (1908), Brazilian (1930), Katavsky (1941), Sikhote-Alinsky (1947), Vitimsky (2002), Chelyabinsky (2013). In all cases, powerful light and sound phenomena were recorded, which left their mark in numerous scientific publications. The last one, the Chelyabinsk bolide, was an order of magnitude weaker than the Tunguska one, and yet it did a lot of misfortune, by a lucky coincidence it just missed the populated Ural industrial center a little. Psychological shock, broken windows, stunned residents with numerous injuries from glass fragments, and even in some places partially destroyed walls of buildings. It is not without reason that the Chelyabinsk event was compared with the Tunguska event, in which the age-old taiga was knocked down on an area of two thousand square kilometers (!), And even at a great distance people and horses were literally knocked down. What made 1908 stand out? Maybe the large number of fireballs was not accidental and there is a connection with some cosmic phenomenon that took place simultaneously with the mass of meteors? Such a cosmic phenomenon is hard to miss. It has long been known to mankind, it is called solar activity and is associated with the formation of spots on the Sun. The Tunguska catastrophe occurred precisely during the period of the restless Sun. Siberian researchers A.N.Dmitriev and V.K. Zhuravlev drew attention to this in 1984. Recently, I decided to combine the data on the largest fireballs of the last century with a graph of Wolf numbers, representing the number of sunspots by year. Here is the resulting diagram.

The largest fireballs of the century coincide with the periods of maximum sunspot formation. By years: Tungusky (1908), Brazilian (1930), Katavsky (1941), Sikhote-Alinsky (1947), Vitimsky (2002), Chelyabinsky (2013). Chart - A. Zlobin, 2021.

Looking at the diagram, it is difficult to resist exclamation of surprise. By the looks of it, large, destructive fireballs can be expected every eleven years when sunspots are at their maximum. And it turns out that NASA strongly underestimates the asteroid hazard, arguing that there is no risk of collision for the Earth for the next 100 years. Statistics show the opposite - there is a risk, and it is very high. Every eleven years, the next megaton "Tunguska meteorite" can end up in a metropolis with a multimillion population or in a dangerous industrial facility, and cause irreparable damage. That is, sunspots are an indicator of asteroid danger. The probability of impact from space is the higher, the more spots appear on the solar disk. The break from the 50s to the 90s, when they tried not to advertise unusual celestial phenomena, is most likely associated with the period of the Cold War. Even about the 1941 Katav car of the year, due to wartime, there is also little information. Looking at the diagram, the conclusion suggests itself: modern magnetohydrodynamic models of solar activity are erroneous, since they do not take into account the statistics of fireballs on Earth. Sunspots are formed for a completely different reason and to substantiate this, you need to look at the problem from a different angle. In 1996, my brochure "The Mystery of the Tunguska Meteorite on the Threshold of the XXI Century" was published in the printing house of the Central Institute of Aviation Motors CIAM. Here are some excerpts from this brochure to illustrate the diagram.

The sun - a giant ball of incandescent plasma - is a complex and highly turbulent formation. According to heliophysics data, the Sun has variable activity, the maximum of which is manifested in the intensification of sunspot-forming activity, an increase in the number of solar flares, and the appearance of active prominences. One of the most important components of solar activity is solar magnetic field variations. As long-term observations show, the magnetic fields on the Sun change synchronously with the number of sunspots, the frequency of formation of which determines the cycle of the Sun's activity - about eleven years. Let us turn to the description of solar activity during the development of the Tunguska events. After the maximum activity in 1906, the latter declined very slowly. Sunspots were observed several times in the summer of 1908. Thus, a medium-sized sunspot passed along the central meridian in the evening of June 30, and around June 20-30 a significant group of small sunspots was observed on the northwestern limb. On the morning of June 30, an active prominence was noted. Two sunspot groups were discovered on August 6. Finally, on September 28-29, a powerful aurora was observed from Alaska to St. Petersburg. The reasons for the cyclical activity of the Sun still remain a mystery to modern science. Astronomers speculate that the observed changes in sunspot occurrence and solar magnetism are caused by the movement of solar plasma through existing magnetic fields. However, mathematical modeling of the dynamics of solar plasma motions and its interactions with the magnetic field encounters serious difficulties in reproducing the eleven-year cycle itself.

Another possible reason for the formation of the eleven-year cycle should be indicated - the influence of the giant planets. Indeed, the period of Jupiter's revolution around the Sun is approximately eleven years. There is also reliable data, according to which a certain position of the giant planets evokes a response in the characteristics of solar activity ... Now attention! There are no less reliable data on the influence of giant planets on the orbits of comets. Having a colossal mass, Jupiter, for example, can change the orbits of passing comets and direct them towards the Sun. So aren't flares and spots on the Sun the result of a directed "bombardment" of its surface by small bodies of the Solar System? In this case, the Tunguska catastrophe on Earth is just an accidental hit of one of the many comets destined for the Sun during the period of maximum bombing activity. In the work of AL Chizhevsky "Physical factors of the historical process" it was noted that even Sir John Herschel (1792 - 1871) wanted to explain sunspots by the fall of meteoric matter on the Sun. The American Pierce and then Stephanie adhered to this hypothesis. The greatest English physicist Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) admitted such a possibility, explaining the acceleration of the equatorial motion of the solar mass by meteoric impacts. In 1913, Turner put forward a similar hypothesis. The periodicity of sunspots was explained by the influence of planets, the combination of movements of which around the Sun was put in connection with the period of sunspots.

a) Spiral cometary cloud and the position of Jupiter, at which the maximum (1) and minimum (2) solar activity are provided b) The bombardment of the Sun by comets at different latitudes as a result of the gravitational effect of Jupiter on the spiral cometary cloud (A. Zlobin, 1996)

So, we can offer the following model of the eleven-year cycle of the Sun's activity. Based on the idea of the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, we will assume that the solar system is surrounded by a giant cloud of comets (the Oort cloud). In addition to this idea, suppose the comet cloud has a spiral structure, the closest branch of which is within the gravitational sphere of the giant planets. As you know, the maximum disturbing effect on the orbits of comets is produced by Jupiter. Circling with a period of 11 years around the Sun, Jupiter will snatch from the cometary spiral the more comets, the closer the section of the spiral branch is to the Sun. In such years, the bombardment of the Sun by comets will intensify, which will cause a maximum of solar activity. And vice versa - a minimum of solar activity will be observed when the sections of the spiral branch of the cometary cloud are far from the Sun. Such a model not only provides a simple explanation for the eleven-year solar cycle, but also allows you to accurately predict its characteristics. Indeed, one can, for example, unequivocally assert that if the direction of Jupiter's orbital motion coincides with the direction of unwinding of the cometary spiral, the increase in solar activity will occur faster than the decline. It is this effect that is found every 11 years on the curve of the number of sunspots, which characterizes the state of solar activity. Undoubtedly, with the same period of 11 years, the latitude of the appearance of spots on the solar disk should change. The latitude of the appearance of spots will be the higher, the less distance the gravitational field of Jupiter acts on the spiral cometary cloud. This effect is also observed by astronomers and is called Sperer's law. Its graphical representation is well known as a butterfly diagram (Maunder).

Based on the proposed model, it is easy to calculate the main characteristics of the cometary cloud, and to establish the regularity of the appearance of new comets in the circumsolar region. It is also possible to determine the probabilities of comets hitting the Sun and, most importantly, the Earth. This probability is easily determined by the frequency of occurrence of sunspots. According to the data for the last century, a pessimistic scenario follows, according to which collisions with the Earth can occur every 11 years. The proof of this is the largest fireballs - analogs of "sunspots" on Earth. It is important to pay attention to the fact that the spiral structure of the cometary cloud indicates the interstellar origin of comets. In this case, the shape of the spiral is due to the gravitational capture of the flow of comets from interstellar space. In this case, the material composition of cometary nuclei may differ greatly in their characteristics from the material composition of the cosmic bodies of the solar system. For example, F.L. Whipple considers it possible to accept the assumption of the existence of asteroidal nuclei in some comets. Only recently were two objects discovered at once that arrived in the solar system from interstellar space - the asteroid Oumuamua and the comet Borisov. This confirms the influx of small bodies from interstellar distances. The total number of discovered near-Earth asteroids has already exceeded tens of thousands (!) And only last year astronomers discovered an additional about three thousand new objects.

There are also a number of considerations that make the problem of comet-asteroid danger extremely alarming. After many bright fireballs, too little cosmic matter is found on earth. This can be explained, for example, by the significant icy component of the meteoric body or by the similarity of its matter with the earth. However, an unusual interpretation of this phenomenon suggests itself. Recently, astronomers have been unsuccessfully trying to detect the so-called dark matter of the Universe. Its "invisibility" is already challenging the entire system of the universe. If the halo of a spiral cometary cloud is somehow connected with dark matter, then some material "clots", completely invisible and inaccessible for observation by any modern instruments, can take place in it. This means one thing: both the Sun and the Earth can collide with objects that cannot be detected in advance - invisible objects. In this case, humanity is not just dealing with a problem, it is a real headache. By the way, there is nothing fantastic about invisible objects. Aren't American stealth planes known to the whole world, which have long been produced using stealth technology? In general, many physical phenomena are known that only yesterday seemed outright fiction, but today they are already being used in the field of high technologies. Take superconducting meteorites, the existence of which I predicted back in 1988. 30 years after my forecast, American scientists experimentally confirmed the presence of superconducting properties in two meteorites at once, although without reference to the Russian priority. At one time, the Americans A. Jackson and M. Ryan proposed a fantastic hypothesis of a "small black hole" to explain the Tunguska catastrophe. Isn't it an invisible object? The situation is described in the best possible way by the words from the famous Shakespearean tragedy: "There is much in nature, friend of Horatio, that our sages never dreamed of."

If we objectively assess the readiness of mankind to repel strikes from space, then there are practically no chances to withstand the asteroid threat. Too little attention is paid to science and technology to counter space hazards. For example, at the end of April, the IAA Planetary Defense Conference took place and at the same time exercises, which, alas, ended in a conditional fall of a cosmic body to Earth. The conference participants discussed many issues, however, the result of the exercises is inexorable - in the event of a collision with an asteroid or comet, catastrophic consequences cannot be avoided. The whole world knows the domestic development - the planetary defense system "Citadel", but its funding has been in question for many years. Today, money is spent on anything other than protection from the greatest danger that can instantly destroy life on our planet at any second. And the main reason for such carelessness is the gross mistakes in determining the degree of risk. I repeat once again, judging by the statistics of large fireballs and the growing activity of the Sun, in a few years the Earth can be attacked again from space. During the periods of the two previous solar maximums, the Vitimsky and Chelyabinsky fireballs may have become the last formidable warning. Earthlings have several years to change their minds and prepare to meet new "sunspots". Then it may be too late. Some skeptics argue that even nuclear and thermonuclear energy will not be enough to neutralize a large asteroid. But this does not mean at all that humanity will not find another kind, for example, "dark energy", capable of affecting dangerous space objects on an astronomical scale ... The human mind is capable of grandiose discoveries and it's time to start protecting the Earth from the sword of Damocles of Armageddon.