The very first meteorite to fall to earth. Meteorites falling on Earth

Every day, up to 6 tons of meteorites fall to the Earth: some of them cause serious damage, others scatter in the atmosphere. The meteorite catalog contains about 23 thousand objects. We will highlight the most curious space aliens.

Officially, the oldest meteorite to reach the surface of the Earth is considered to be a space object discovered on Mount Huashitai near the Chinese city of Xi'an. According to scientists, it fell to Earth about 2 billion years ago. It is interesting that the inhabitants of these places have revered Mount Huashitai as sacred since ancient times.

This meteorite can also be called the largest. Chinese scientists estimated the dimensions of the celestial giant - 160x50x60 meters, with a weight of almost 200 tons. To get to the core of the meteorite, scientists had to drill a hole 50 meters long.

Today, China's first meteorite park has opened at the crash site, where visitors can increase their knowledge of unusual celestial aliens.

The most “iron”

In 1920, in what is now Namibia, farmer Jacob Hermanus, plowing the ground, came across a huge block of stone - he did not know that he had discovered a meteorite. The heavenly guest was named after the nearby Hoba West Farm. The meteorite mainly consists of iron, due to which, despite its rather modest size - a diameter of 2.5 meters and a volume of 9 cubic meters. meters - its weight reaches 6 tons.

According to scientists, the meteorite fell about 80 thousand years ago. It is curious that it left a crater that was too small for its size, but most likely, according to scientists, the object had a small angle of incidence, and before colliding with the surface of the Earth, it greatly slowed down its speed. The possibility of such a fall is confirmed by the shape of the celestial body - it is flat on both sides.

Since the meteorite became a tourist attraction, according to experts, it has lost at least 6 tons - the result of vandals who are all trying to break off a piece for themselves as a souvenir. In order to somehow prevent the theft of the meteorite for souvenirs, local authorities declared it a national monument in 1955.

The most mysterious

The disaster that occurred on June 30, 1908 in the sky over Siberia in the Podkamennaya Tunguska region is associated with the fall of a meteorite. The explosion, which occurred at an altitude of approximately 5-10 kilometers, was so powerful that it was recorded by observatories around the world. According to scientists, the power of the explosion was 40-50 kilotons - this corresponds to the power of a hydrogen bomb.

The blast wave felled a forest within a radius of 40 kilometers, and streams of flammable gases provoked a severe fire. Due to the clouds formed after the passage of the celestial body on the line from the Southern Yenisei to the French city of Bordeaux, the effect of “bright nights” could be observed for several days. This phenomenon became possible due to the intense reflection of solar rays by clouds.

The site of the Tunguska meteorite disaster was visited by several research expeditions, but no fragments were discovered that clearly belonged to the celestial body, with the exception of microscopic silicate and magnetite balls, which are attributed to extraterrestrial origin. A number of other finds at the site of the disaster - conical holes in the ground and quartz cobblestones with mysterious signs - have so far baffled scientists.

Largest meteor shower

In March 1976, residents of the Chinese province of Jilin were literally hit by “stone rain” that lasted more than half an hour. However, despite the intensity of the meteorite bombardment, there was no information about the damage caused.

Scientists have found that the speed of the meteorite shower was approximately 12 km/sec, and the weight of its fragments reached 12.5 kg. Later, the largest of the objects was discovered - a 1.7-ton meteorite named Girin.

As a rule, meteorite showers are possible when a larger meteorite is destroyed due to severe overheating in the upper atmosphere. This is evidenced by the testimony of eyewitnesses who reported a strong cannonade of explosions before the fall of the stones.

The most unusual

In 1980, a seemingly unremarkable fist-sized meteorite fell onto the territory of a Soviet military base near the town of Qaidun in Yemen, if not for one circumstance: it was not like any of the meteorites found so far. According to an employee of the Institute of Geochemistry named after. Vernadsky Andrei Ivanov, this two-kilogram meteorite most likely flew to us from Phobos, the satellite of Mars.

Electron microscope studies showed that the body of the space guest consists of substances completely different both in origin and chemical properties; fragments of volcanic rocks and a high carbon content were also found in it.

American scientist Michael Zolensky suggests that carbonaceous substances are a consequence of the “asteroid past of Phobos,” and volcanic fragments fell onto the meteorite from Mars.

The most "alive"

The meteorite that fell in 1969 near the Australian town of Murchison does not have any special dimensions - 108 kilograms, but it is known for having more than 14 thousand organic compounds, including about 70 amino acids. True, real debate arose about the latter, since some scientists believed that some amino acids entered the celestial body from earthly soil.

The debate continued for 27 years until American scientists conducted a decisive experiment, during which they proved that the ratio of organic substances in the meteorite “differs from that characteristic of all terrestrial objects.” The Murchison meteorite is of interest primarily to those who believe that life on Earth occurred due to the introduction of organic compounds from space.

The largest accumulation of meteorites

The ice shell of Antarctica is an ideal place for discovering the remains of celestial bodies, since its white surface does not allow anything to escape the gaze of researchers. Scientists have calculated that approximately 700 thousand meteorites are scattered on the surface of the continent - real “deposits” of stellar matter can be found here. In places with the greatest concentration of space objects, according to scientists, “meteorites are literally lying under your feet.”

Astrophysicists from Canada claim that the mass of the stream of meteorites bombarding our long-suffering planet exceeds 21 tons per year. But in most cases this goes unnoticed, since a person can observe and find meteorites only in the habitable zone.

The share of land on the Earth's surface is only 29%; the rest of the planet is occupied by the World Ocean. But even from this 29% it is necessary to take away places that are not inhabited by humans or are completely unsuitable for habitation. Therefore, finding a meteorite is a great success. However, there was a case when a meteorite itself found a person.

The case of a meteorite colliding with a person

In the entire history of celestial bodies falling to Earth, only one officially documented case of direct contact of a meteorite with a person is known.

It happened in the USA on November 30, 1954. A four-kilogram meteorite broke through the roof of a house and injured the owner’s leg. This means that there is still a risk that a more serious visitor from outer space could fall on people’s heads. I wonder what the largest meteorite fell on our planet?

Meteorites are divided into three categories: stony, stony-iron and iron. And each of these categories has its own giants.

The largest stone meteorite

Relatively recently, on March 8, 1976, space presented the Chinese with a gift in the form of stones falling to the surface of the earth for 37 minutes. One of the fallen specimens weighed 1.77 tons. It was the largest meteorite to fall to earth with the structure of a rock. The incident occurred near the Chinese province of Jilin. The space guest received the same name.

To this day, the Jilin meteorite remains the largest rock meteorite discovered on earth.

Largest ironstone meteorite

The largest representative of the category of iron-stone meteorites weighed 1.5 tons. It was found in 1805 in Germany.

A fellow German meteorite, found in Australia, weighed only 100 kg less than the German one.

But everyone was surpassed by the iron guest from space, whose weight was tens of times greater than all previously found meteorites.

Largest iron meteorite

In 1920, an iron meteorite with a diameter of 2.7 meters and weighing over 66 tons was discovered in southwestern Namibia! A larger specimen than this has never been found on our planet. It turned out to be the largest meteorite to fall on Earth. It was named after the Goba West farm, whose owner came across it while cultivating a field. The approximate age of the iron block is 80 thousand years.

Today it is the largest solid block of natural iron.

In 1955, the largest meteorite that fell to earth, Goba, was declared a national monument and taken under state protection. This was a necessary measure, since over the 35 years that the meteorite was in the public domain, it lost 6 tons in mass. Part of the weight was lost as a result of natural processes - erosion. But numerous tourists made the main contribution to the “weight loss” process. Now you can approach the celestial body only under supervision and for a fee.

The meteorites mentioned above are, of course, the largest in their category ever discovered. But the question of which largest meteorite fell to earth remained open.

The meteorite that killed the dinosaurs

Everyone knows the sad story of the extinction of dinosaurs. Scientists are still arguing about the cause of their death, but the version that a meteorite was the culprit of the tragedy remains the main one.

According to scientists, 65 million years ago the Earth was hit by a huge meteorite, which caused a catastrophe on a planetary scale. The meteorite fell on the territory that now belongs to Mexico - the Yucotan Peninsula, near the village of Chicxulub. Evidence of this fall was the impact crater found in 1970. But since the depression was filled with sedimentary rocks, they did not carefully examine the meteorite. And only 20 years later scientists returned to study it.

As a result of the work, it turned out that the crater left by the meteorite has a diameter of 180 km. The diameter of the meteorite itself was about 10 km. The impact energy during the fall was 100,000 Gtv (this is comparable to the simultaneous explosion of 2,000,000 of the largest thermonuclear charges).

It is assumed that a tsunami was formed as a result of the meteorite impact, the wave height varied from 50 to 100 meters. The dust particles raised during the impact tightly blocked the Earth from the Sun for several years, which led to a sharp climate change. and periodic large-scale fires aggravated the situation. An analogue of nuclear winter has arrived on the planet. As a result of the disaster, 75% of animal and plant species became extinct.

Nevertheless, officially the Chicxulub meteorite is the largest meteorite that fell to earth 65 million years ago. He practically destroyed all life on the planet. But in history it ranks only third in size.

First among the giants

Presumably 2 billion years ago, a meteorite fell on Earth, leaving a mark 300 km in diameter on its surface. The meteorite itself supposedly had a diameter of more than 15 km.

The crater left after the fall is located in South Africa, in the Free State province, and is called Vredefort. This is the largest impact crater, and was left by the largest meteorite that fell to Earth in the entire history of our planet. In 2005, the Vredefort Crater was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The largest meteorite that fell to Earth did not leave a photo as a souvenir, but a huge scar in the form of a crater on the surface of our planet will not allow us to forget about it.

It has been noted that the fall of meteorites, the size of which is measured at least tens of meters, occurs with a periodicity of hundreds of years. And larger meteorites fall even less frequently.

According to scientists, a new guest wants to visit Earth in 2029.

Meteorite named Apophis

The meteorite that threatens our planet was named Apophis (that was the name of the snake god, who was the antipode of the sun god Ra in Ancient Egypt). It is not known for certain whether it will fall to Earth or miss and pass near the planet. But what happens if a collision does occur?

Scenario of Apophis colliding with Earth

So, it is known that the diameter of Apophis is only 320 meters. When it falls to Earth, there will be an explosion equal in power to the 15,000 bombs dropped on Hiroshima.

If Apophis hits the mainland, an impact crater will appear, having a depth of 400-500 meters and a diameter of up to 5 km. The resulting explosion will destroy permanent structures at a distance of 50 km from the epicenter. Buildings that do not have the strength of a brick house will be destroyed at a distance of 100-150 km. The column of dust will rise to a height of several kilometers and then cover the entire planet.

Stories spread by the media about nuclear winter and the end of the world are too exaggerated. The size of the meteorite is too small for such consequences. The temperature may drop by 1-2 degrees, but after six months it will return to normal. That is, the predicted catastrophe, if it does happen, will be far from global.

If Apophis falls into the ocean, which is more likely, a tsunami will occur that will cover coastal areas. The height of the wave will depend on the distance between the shore and the location of the meteorite fall. The initial wave can be up to 500 meters high, but if Apophis falls in the center of the ocean, then the wave reaching the shore will not exceed 10-20 meters. Although this is also quite serious. The storm will continue for several hours. All these events should be considered only as possible with some degree of probability. So will Apophis collide with our planet or not?

The probability of Apophis falling to Earth

Apophis will theoretically threaten our planet twice. The first time - in 2029, and then - in 2036. After conducting observations using radar installations, a group of scientists completely ruled out the possibility of a meteorite colliding with the earth. As for 2036, today the chance of a meteorite colliding with the Earth is 1:250,000. And every year, as the accuracy of calculations increases, the probability of a collision decreases.

But even with this probability, various options for forcing Apophis to deviate from course are being considered. Apophis is thus an object of interest rather than threat.

In conclusion, I would like to note that meteorites are severely destroyed when entering the earth’s atmosphere. When approaching the Earth, the falling speed of guests from space is 10-70 km/sec, and upon contact with a gaseous atmosphere, which has a fairly high density, the temperature of the meteorite increases to critical, and it simply burns up or is very badly destroyed. Thus, the atmosphere of our planet is the best protector against uninvited guests.

WISE telescope, photo: NASA

Based on the results of the work of the telescope, NASA in 2010 and 2011 published a catalog of near-Earth objects - about 18.5 thousand in total, and also used the danger criteria developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Turin scale), according to which all asteroids in the NEOWISE catalog were colored according to the probability of their collision with the Earth from white (no danger) to red (collision imminent).

Good news: as of today, all objects in this catalog are white. This means that so far scientists have not been able to find a single near-Earth asteroid whose probability of falling to Earth in the next 200 years exceeds 1%, or three on the Turin scale. Periodically, objects with non-zero danger scores appeared in the catalog, but as their orbits were refined, they quickly dropped first to one, and then to zero.

Two asteroids - Apophis and Bennu - were assigned very high hazard index values ​​when they were discovered. Opened in 2004, the 350-meter Apophis (by the way, it was named not in honor of the ancient Egyptian god Apep, but in honor of the villain from the TV series Stargate: SG-1) first received a record two at that time, and then a four on the Turin scale. The collision with Earth was supposed to occur in 2036.

A photograph of the Itokawa asteroid taken during the Japanese Hayabusa mission in 2005. Presumably, the asteroid is identical in composition and size to Apophis. Photo: ISAS/JAXA

Two years later, when astronomers refined the asteroid’s orbit, it was lowered first to one and then to zero. The probability that Apophis will meet Earth is estimated at 0.00089%, or one chance in 112 thousand. Today, the most dangerous near-Earth object is considered to be the 500-meter Apollo asteroid 2009 FD, which may fall to Earth in 2185 with a probability of 0.29%.

Orbit of Apophis

As for objects the size of Chelyabinsk, scientists cannot estimate how often they can fall to Earth and whether the real threat is great. In 2011, at the first presentation of the NEOWISE catalog, NASA reported that today we know only about five thousand asteroids about one hundred meters in size, while their total number is estimated at several tens of thousands. The number of smaller objects within the main asteroid belt can reach a million.

Made from something

It is impossible to accurately assess the damage due to the fact that we know very little about the composition of asteroids, and this is critical information, without which it is impossible to assess the consequences of the fall of a hypothetical “Apophis” to Earth.

The idea of ​​studying asteroids “in situ” has been in the minds of astronomers for quite some time. The pioneer in this matter was the Japanese Hayabusa probe, which went to the Itokawa asteroid in 2008 in order to collect soil samples. Due to numerous breakdowns and fantastic bad luck, the Hayabusa managed to collect only one and a half thousand dust particles, which it nevertheless delivered to Earth in 2010.

Hayabusa-2. Image: JAXA

In the winter of 2014, the successor to the unsuccessful probe, Hayabusa-2, set off for asteroid 1999 JU3, which will arrive at the target in 2018. In parallel, NASA is developing its own mission, OSIRIS-REx, which will fly to Bennu in 2016 with the same mission as Hayabusa.

The lack of specific data on the composition of asteroids does not prevent engineers from dreaming of defense systems against celestial guests. One of the many projects is the DE-STAR system, which should properly heat a dangerous asteroid and throw it off its path. According to the calculations of the authors of the idea, a platform 100 meters in size will be enough to push Apophis out of its orbit, and a ten-kilometer laser will be enough to completely evaporate it.

In addition, there are projects like the NEOShield or ISIS probes, a potential “companion” of OSIRIS-REx, which involve diverting asteroids from their intended course with a “right hook” - a collision with a heavy metal blank. As an option, engineers propose attaching a heavy satellite to the stone, which will change the orbit of the celestial body. Russian scientists from the Institute of Space Research are even planning to shoot down asteroids with the help of other asteroids.

Artist's rendering of OSIRIS-REx. Image: University of Arizona/Goddard/NASA

Until Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx reach their targets, scientists can only guess at the exact mineral and chemical composition of the asteroids. The composition of celestial bodies can be determined from their spectra, but due to collisions with other bodies, the surface of asteroids can radically change color, so the spectrum will deceive astronomers. Without knowing the composition, one can only approximately estimate the consequences of the fall of space rocks, based on what disasters the Earth has already experienced in the past.

Well forgotten old

The most famous and studied trace of such falls is the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan Peninsula in southern Mexico. The fall of a 10-kilometer cosmic “boulder” 65.5 million years ago left a crater with a diameter of 180 kilometers and led to catastrophic consequences: it is believed that it was because of the fall of the meteorite that dinosaurs and a fair part of the Mesozoic fauna became extinct.

And this is not the worst option: the diameter of the Vredefort crater in South Africa, apparently left by a meteorite, is 300 kilometers. The “pebble” fell to Earth about two billion years ago, when microbes dominated the planet. Just recently, scientists discovered in Australia an as yet unnamed crater with a diameter of 400 kilometers, which arose about 300-420 million years ago.

Another thing is that there are not many traces of encounters with small - up to several hundred meters - asteroids, so the consequences of the fall of such stones on cities and densely populated countries cannot be determined.

One of the few examples of such events is the so-called “Clovis Comet” - an object supposedly the size of the Tunguska meteorite (scientists do not agree whether it was an asteroid or a comet), which fell into the New World approximately 13 thousand years ago. Its fall caused large-scale fires, a sharp cooling due to clouds of ash and aerosol particles, the extinction of the remains of megafauna and the disappearance of the Clovis culture, the first tribes of the American Indians.

It was only in 2013 that geologists managed to localize the crash site of this object: it crashed in the province of Quebec in Canada, but the crater itself has not yet been found. So it may very well be that the Clovis Comet was relatively small.

What to do?

This question is regularly asked to the head of NASA and Russian space officials. As the current head of the American Space Agency put it, so far humanity has only one option - to “pray,” since the problem has been ignored for decades and there are no effective means for destroying and 100% detecting asteroids.

Moreover, until the results of the Hayabusa and Osiris studies are received, as well as complete catalogs of near-Earth asteroids, governments are unlikely to allocate money for anything other than prayer. Politicians remember celestial surprises only when the next Chelyabinsk falls, and their ardor quickly cools when they see calculations of the amounts that need to be invested in protecting the Earth. So today humanity can only hope for commercial projects to “explore” asteroids - perhaps the data they collect on small celestial bodies and comets will convince officials to seriously think about the future of the planet.

Alexander Telishev

March 15th, 2017

Our planet is often attacked by various space objects. Most of them burn up in the atmosphere, never reaching the Earth's surface. Those that evaporate we call shooting stars or meteors (comet remnants). However, some larger lucky ones, meteorites, sometimes still manage to reach the surface of the Earth, on which they can lie unchanged for thousands of years.

Asteroids are even larger space objects. One theory suggests that one such rock left the Earth without dinosaurs some 63 million years ago, and we narrowly avoided a collision with another like it, 2012 DA14, in 2013.

Below we will talk about the six largest meteorites ever known to earthlings.

The largest meteorites

Iron-nickel Willamette

American Museum of Natural History, 1911

This is the largest meteorite ever found in the United States. Its weight is 15.5 tons and its size is 7.8 square meters. The dents in the meteorite were not caused by the fact that it was partially burned while reaching the Earth. The thing is that it rusted for hundreds of millions of years, lying in the humid forests of Western Oregon.

The meteorite ended up in the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1906. Before getting to the museum, an interesting story happened to the meteorite.

Initially, the meteorite was discovered by the Indians, who moved it to the Willamette Valley of Oregon. This assumption arose due to the fact that the impact crater was not found. It is believed to be located in Canada.

The Indians worshiped the stone, calling it a guest from the moon, and they used rainwater collected in the recesses of the stone to treat diseases.

In 1902, the meteorite was discovered by miner Ellis Hughes. The man immediately realized that in front of him was not just a stone, so for three months he slowly moved the find to his site.

However, it was exposed, and the pebble was recognized as the property of a steel company in Oregon, on whose territory the meteorite was originally located.

In 1905, the meteorite was bought by a private individual for $26,000 and a year later donated to a museum in New York, where it still resides.

After the stone ended up in the museum, the Indians of Oregon demanded the return of the meteorite, since it had been the object of their religious cult for many centuries and took part in an annual ritual ceremony.

However, it turned out to be impossible to remove the meteorite from the museum without destroying the walls, so an agreement was concluded with the Indians, within the framework of which a ceremony could be held on the territory of the museum once a year.

Largest meteorites

Mbozi meteorite

This meteorite was discovered in the 1930s in Tanzania. The meteorite is almost 1 meter in height, 3 meters in length, and its weight is almost twice that of Willamette and is 25 tons.

For many centuries, local tribes considered Mbozi a sacred stone and did not tell anyone about it due to various taboos. They called it "kimondo", which translates from Swahili as "meteor".

It is interesting that there is no crater at the site where the meteorite was discovered. This suggests that after the collision with the Earth, the meteorite rolled on the surface for some time.

The meteorite is 90 percent iron, like most of its known counterparts, which also explains its dark color. The stone shows very visible traces of melting and heating to very high temperatures, which is a consequence of passing through the upper layers of the atmosphere.

People dug a ditch around the meteorite, since initially Mbozi was partially submerged in the ground. They left a layer of soil underneath, which later became a natural pedestal.

The largest meteorites

Cape York Meteorite

This is the third largest meteorite that fell to Earth about 10,000 years ago. The meteorite was named after the place where its most significant fragments were discovered in Greenland.

The largest fragment of the meteorite is called "Anigito" and weighs 31 tons. The history of his name is interesting. When the stone was delivered to the American Museum of Natural History by ship in 1897, the four-year-old daughter of explorer Robert Peary broke a bottle of wine on it and uttered a meaningless word in her language: “a-ni-gi-to.”

They decided to name the pebble, which the Eskimos, who were the first to find the meteorite, previously called “Tent”. "Anigito" took root better.

The second largest fragment of the meteorite is called Agpalik (the aborigines called it “Man”). It was discovered in 1963, weighs 20 tons and is now in the Geological Museum at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Various meteorite fragments were found between 1911 and 1984. In addition to “Man” and “Anigito”, they also found “Woman” (3 tons), “Dog” (400 kg), etc.

It is worth noting that for a long time, the Inuit tribes used fragments and fragments of the Cape York meteorite to create their harpoons and tools.

Meteorites that fell to Earth

Meteorite Bakubirito

This is the largest meteorite found in Mexico. It weighs about 20 tons, is 4.5 meters long, 2 meters wide, and 1.75 meters high. It was discovered by geologist Gilbert Ellis Bailey near the city of Sinaloa de Leyva.

The pebble was found in 1863, and now it can be seen in the scientific center of the city of Sinaloa.

El Chaco meteorite

This meteorite ranks second among the largest to ever collide with the Earth. It weighs almost twice as much as the previous one on this list - 37 tons!

It fell in Argentina and is part of a group of meteorites called Campo del Cielo. As a result of its fall, a crater was formed with an area of ​​60 square meters.

El Chaco was discovered in 1969 using a metal detector, because it was located underground at a depth of 5 meters.

Meteorite hunter Robert Haag tried to steal it in 1990, but local police responded in time.

Last year, 2016, another fragment was discovered and brought to the surface, which is believed to be part of the same group of meteorites as El Chaco.

Goba meteorite

This meteorite is the largest ever found. It fell in southwest Africa, in Namibia, and never moved. He is twice as heavy as his closest rival, El Paco: this monster weighs 60 tons.

The pebble got its name from the Hoba West Farm, on whose territory it was found in 1920. It was found by pure chance by the owner of the farm when he was plowing one of his fields, because neither the crater nor other traces of the fall remained.

Goba is interesting because, compared to other meteorites, its surface is smooth and flat. It is 84 percent iron and 16 percent nickel.

It is worth adding that the meteorite was never weighed. It is believed that when it fell to Earth, its weight was about 90 tons. According to estimates at the time of discovery in 1920, the baby weighed about 66 tons, however, scientific research, vandalism and erosion still took their toll, so today Goba has lost weight to 60 tons.

Goba is currently considered the largest piece of iron of natural origin. It covers an area of ​​6.5 square meters. It is believed to have fallen to Earth about 80,000 years ago and has not moved since due to its enormous size.

Oddly enough, there was never a need to dig it up. According to one theory, due to its relatively flat shape, the meteorite slid along the surface rather than going deeper into the ground.

Our planet is surrounded by a huge number of different celestial bodies. Small ones, when falling to Earth, go unnoticed, but the fall of larger ones, weighing up to several hundred kilograms and even tons, leaves various consequences. Scientists from the Canadian Astrophysical Institute in Ottawa claim that a meteorite shower with a total weight of more than 20 tons hits the Earth's surface every year. The weight of individual meteorites ranges from several grams to tons.

(23 photos of meteorites + video)

The largest meteorites that fell on Earth

On April 22, 2012, a celestial body appeared near the surface of the Earth, moving at tremendous speed. Flying over the US states of Nevada and California, scattering hot particles, the meteorite exploded in the sky over Washington. The power of the explosion was about 4 kilotons of TNT, which is almost eighty times less than the power. Research by scientists has established that the Sutter Mill meteorite was formed during the formation of the solar system.

A year has already passed since February 2012, when hundreds of meteorite rocks fell over an area of ​​100 km in China. Eyewitnesses still remember this extraordinary event. The largest meteorite found weighed 12.6 kg.

Near Lake Titicaca in Peru, in the fall of 2007, a meteorite fell, which eyewitnesses observed as a falling body engulfed in fire. The fall of the meteorite was accompanied by a loud noise, reminiscent of the sound of a falling plane.

At the crash site, a crater 6 m deep and 30 m in diameter formed, from which a fountain of hot water burst out. The consequences of the meteorite fall are still felt by local residents.

Most likely, the celestial body contained toxic substances; 1,500 people living in the area closest to the crash site suffer from severe headaches.

In the summer of 1998, a meteorite fell near the Turkmen city of Kunya-Urgench, which received the name of the city. The fall of the celestial body was accompanied by a bright light. At the site where the largest meteorite fragment (weighing 820 kg) fell, a five-meter crater formed. Fortunately, no local residents were injured; the meteorite fell on a cotton field.

Scientists have established the age of the Turkmen meteorite - more than 4 billion years, this is the largest among the stone meteorites that fell on the territory of the CIS. Among all the known stone meteorites that fell to Earth, Kunya-Urgench is the third largest. Most often, stone meteorites fall on Earth; their share is almost 93% of all types of celestial bodies that fell on the planet. The Chelyabinsk meteorite, according to the first estimates of scientists, was iron.

Meteorite Sterlitamak, 1990

On the night of May 17, 1990, a celestial body weighing 315 kilograms fell 20 kilometers from Sterlitamak. The meteorite, called Sterlitamak, left a crater with a diameter of 10 meters at the site of its impact on a state farm field. The largest fragment was not found immediately, but only a year later, at a depth of 12 meters. Nowadays it is an exhibit of the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography. The meteorite, weighing 315 kilograms, has dimensions of 0.5x0.4x0.25 meters.

In March 1976, the largest shower of rock meteorites in history occurred in the Chinese province of Jilin. The fall of cosmic bodies to Earth continued for 37 minutes, the speed of the fall reached 12 kilometers per second. About a hundred meteorites were found, the largest of them was named Jilin (Girin), weighing 1.7 tons.

In the winter of 1947, a meteorite fell in the form of iron rain in the Far Eastern Ussuri taiga in the Sikhote-Alin mountains. Having broken up in the atmosphere as a result of the explosion, the meteorite turned into many fragments that fell over an area of ​​10 sq. km. In places where the debris fell, more than 30 craters were formed, from 7 to 28 m in diameter, up to 6 m deep.

About 27 tons of meteorite debris were found over a vast area.

The largest meteorite currently known to science is called Goba. An iron giant with a volume of 9 cubic meters and weighing almost 66 tons fell to the surface of the Earth in prehistoric times. After lying on Earth for approximately 80,000 years, in 1920 the meteorite was found in Namibia.

The Goba meteorite is the heaviest of all cosmic bodies that has ever hit the surface of our planet. It consists mainly of iron. Now it is the largest piece of naturally occurring iron on Earth. It still lies in Namibia, southwest Africa. Since its discovery, the meteorite has lost almost 6 tons in weight as a result of scientific research, erosion and vandalism. Now it weighs 60 tons.

The mysterious Tunguska meteorite is considered one of the most studied on the planet, but continues to remain the most mysterious phenomenon of the beginning of the last century. On June 30, 1908, in the early morning, a giant fireball flew over the territory of the Yenisei River basin. Over an uninhabited taiga region, the object exploded at an altitude of 7-10 km. The blast wave circled the globe twice and was so powerful that it was recorded by all observatories in the world.

The power of the explosion of the Tunguska meteorite is equal to the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb - 40-50 kilotons. The space giant, presumably weighing from 100 thousand tons to 1 million tons, rushed at speeds of tens of kilometers per second.

The blast wave felled trees over an area of ​​more than 200 sq. km, and window panes were broken in houses. Within a radius of 40 kilometers, animals died and people were injured. After the explosion, an intense glow of the sky and clouds was observed over a vast area for several days.

The answer to the question: what was that? - still not. If the fireball was a meteorite, then a gigantic crater with a depth of at least 500 m should have appeared at the crash site. But in all subsequent years it was never found. The Tunguska meteorite remains a mystery of the 20th century. The celestial body exploded in the air, the consequences of this were colossal, and no remains or debris were ever found on Earth.

Meteor Shower, USA, 1833

On an autumn November night in 1833, a meteorite rained over the United States. Within 10 hours, meteorites of various sizes fell on the surface of the Earth, the total number of which exceeded 240,000. The source of this phenomenon was the most powerful of the currently known meteorite showers, which is called the Leonids.

About two dozen meteorite showers pass near the Earth every day. Scientists know about 50 comets that theoretically have the potential to cross the Earth's orbit. About once every ten years the Earth collides with relatively small cosmic bodies. Despite the fact that the movement of celestial bodies has been quite well studied and predicted, the next collision of a meteorite with the surface of the Earth is always a mysterious and surprising phenomenon for most of the planet's inhabitants.

HD Video of Meteor Shower