Consider 10 largest meteorites that fell to Earth: rating of meteorites with photos, descriptions and history of discovery, research, impact force, origin.
From time to time, cosmic bodies fall to Earth ... more and not very much, made of stone or metal. Some of them are no more than a grain of sand, others weigh several hundred kilograms or even tons. Scientists from the Astrophysical Institute in Ottawa (Canada) claim that several hundred solid alien bodies with a total mass of more than 21 tons visit our planet every year. The weight of most meteorites does not exceed a few grams, but there are those that weigh several hundred kilograms or even tons.
The places where meteorites fall are either fenced off or vice versa open to the public so that everyone can touch the extraterrestrial "guest".
Some confuse comets and meteorites due to the fact that both of these celestial bodies have a fiery shell. In ancient times, people considered comets and meteorites a bad omen. People tried to avoid places where meteorites fell, considering them to be a cursed zone. Fortunately, in our time, such cases are no longer observed, and even vice versa - the places where meteorites fall are of great interest to the inhabitants of the planet.
In this article, we will recall the 10 largest meteorites that fell on our planet.
The largest meteorites that fell to Earth
A meteorite fell on our planet on April 22, 2012, the speed of the fireball was 29 km / s. Flew over the states of California and Nevada, the meteorite scattered its burning fragments for tens of kilometers and exploded in the sky over the US capital. The power of the explosion is relatively small - 4 kilotons (in TNT equivalent). For comparison, the explosion of the famous Chelyabinsk meteorite was 300 kilotons in TNT.
According to scientists, the Sutter Mill meteorite was formed at the time of the birth of our solar system, the cosmic body more than 4566.57 million years ago.
On February 11, 2012, hundreds of tiny meteorite stones flew over the territory of China and fell over an area of over 100 km in the southern regions of China. The largest of them weighed about 12.6 kg. According to scientists, the meteorites came from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.
On September 15, 2007, a meteorite fell near Lake Titicaca (Peru) near the border with Bolivia. According to eyewitnesses, the event was preceded by a loud noise. Then they saw a falling body engulfed in flames. The meteorite left a bright trail in the sky and a plume of smoke, which was visible several hours after the fireball fell.
A huge crater 30 meters in diameter and 6 meters deep formed at the crash site. The meteorite contained toxic substances, as people living nearby started getting headaches.
Most often, meteorites made of stone (92% of the total), consisting of silicates, fall to Earth. The Chelyabinsk meteorite is an exception, it was iron.
The meteorite fell on June 20, 1998 near the Turkmen city of Kunya-Urgench, hence its name. before the fall locals saw a bright flash. The largest part of the car weighs 820 kg, this piece fell into the field and formed a funnel of 5 meters.
According to geologists, the age of this celestial body is about 4 billion years. The Kunya-Urgench meteorite is certified by the International Meteoritic Society and is considered the largest of all fireballs that fell on the territory of the CIS and third world countries.
Iron car Sterlitamak, whose weight was more than 300 kg, fell on May 17, 1990 on the field of the state farm west of the city Sterlitamak. When a celestial body fell, a crater of 10 meters was formed.
Initially, small metal fragments were discovered, a year later, scientists managed to extract the largest fragment of a meteorite weighing 315 kg. Currently, the meteorite is in the Museum of Ethnography and Archeology of the Ufa Scientific Center.
This event took place in March 1976 in Jilin Province in eastern China. The largest meteor shower lasted more than half an hour. Space bodies fell at a speed of 12 km per second.
Only a few months later, about a hundred meteorites were found, the largest - Jilin (Girin), weighed 1.7 tons.
This meteorite fell on February 12, 1947 on Far East in the city of Sikhote-Alin. The bolide was fragmented in the atmosphere into small iron pieces, which scattered over an area of 15 sq. km.
Several dozen craters 1-6 meters deep and 7 to 30 meters in diameter were formed. Geologists have collected several tens of tons of meteorite material.
Goba meteorite (1920)
Meet Goba - one of the largest meteorites ever found! It fell to Earth 80 thousand years ago, but was found in 1920. A real iron giant weighed about 66 tons and had a volume of 9 cubic meters. Who knows with what myths the people living at that time associated the fall of this meteorite.
composition of the meteorite. 80% of this celestial body consists of iron, it is considered the heaviest of all meteorites that have ever fallen on our planet. Scientists took samples, but did not transport the entire meteorite. Today it is at the crash site. This is one of the largest pieces of iron on Earth of extraterrestrial origin. The meteorite is constantly decreasing: erosion, vandalism and Scientific research did their job: the meteor fell by 10%.
A special fence was created around it, and now Goba is known to the whole planet, many tourists come to visit it.
The most famous Russian meteorite. In the summer of 1908, a huge fireball flew over the territory of the Yenisei. The meteorite exploded at an altitude of 10 km above the taiga. The blast wave circled the Earth twice and was recorded by all observatories.
The power of the explosion is simply monstrous and is estimated at 50 megatons. The flight of a space giant is a hundred kilometers per second. Weight, according to various estimates, varies - from 100 thousand to one million tons!
Fortunately, no one was hurt in this. The meteorite exploded over the taiga. In nearby settlements, a window was blown out by the blast.
Trees fell down as a result of the explosion. Forest areas of 2,000 sq. turned into rubble. The blast killed animals within a radius of more than 40 km. For several days, artifacts were observed over the territory of central Siberia - luminous clouds and the glow of the sky. According to scientists, this was caused by inert gases that were released at the moment the meteorite entered the Earth's atmosphere.
What was it? The meteorite would have left a huge crater at the site of impact, at least 500 meters deep. No expedition has been able to find anything like it...
The Tunguska meteor, on the one hand, is a well-studied phenomenon, on the other hand, one of the biggest mysteries. The celestial body exploded in the air, the pieces burned up in the atmosphere, and no remnants remained on Earth.
The working title "Tunguska meteorite" appeared because this is the simplest and most understandable explanation for a flying ball of fire that caused an explosion effect. The Tunguska meteorite was also called a crashed alien ship, a natural anomaly, and a gas explosion. What he was in reality - one can only guess and build hypotheses.
We were prophesied many times the End of the World according to the scenario that The ground will fall a meteorite, an asteroid and will blow everything to smithereens. But he did not fall, although small meteorites fell.
Can such a meteorite still fall to Earth, which will destroy all life? What asteroids have already fallen to Earth and what consequences did this entail? Today we'll talk about this.
By the way, the next End of the World is predicted for us in October 2017!!
Let's first understand what a meteorite, meteoroid, asteroid, comet is, with what speed they can hit the Earth, for what reason the trajectory of their fall is directed to the Earth's surface, what destructive force meteorites carry, given the object's speed and mass.
meteoroid
A meteoroid is a celestial body intermediate in size between cosmic dust and an asteroid.
A meteoroid that has entered the Earth's atmosphere with great speed (11-72 km/s) heats up due to friction and burns out, turning into a luminous meteor (which can be seen as a "shooting star") or a fireball. The visible trace of a meteoroid that entered the Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor, and a meteoroid that fell to the Earth's surface is called a meteorite.
Cosmic dust- small celestial bodies that burn up in the atmosphere, having an initially small size.
Asteroid
“An asteroid (a synonym common until 2006 - a minor planet) is a relatively small celestial body in the solar system moving in orbit around the sun. Asteroids are significantly inferior in mass and size to planets, have irregular shape and have no atmosphere, although they may have satellites.
Comet
“Comets are like asteroids, but they are not boulders, but frozen flying swamps. They mostly live on the edge of the solar system, forming the so-called Oort cloud, but some fly to the Sun. When they approach the Sun, they begin to melt and evaporate, forming a beautiful tail glowing in the sun's rays. Superstitious people are considered harbingers of misfortune.
fireball— a bright meteor.
Meteor — “(Ancient Greek μετέωρος, “heavenly”), “shooting star” is a phenomenon that occurs when small meteor bodies (for example, fragments of comets or asteroids) burn in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
And finally, the meteorite:A meteorite is a body of cosmic origin that has fallen onto the surface of a large celestial object.
Most of the found meteorites have a mass from several grams to several kilograms (the largest of the found meteorites is Goba, whose mass, according to estimates, was about 60 tons). It is believed that 5-6 tons of meteorites fall on Earth per day, or 2 thousand tons per year.
All relatively large celestial bodies that enter the Earth's atmosphere burn up before reaching the surface, and those that do reach the surface are called meteorites.
And now think about the numbers: “5-6 tons of meteorites fall on Earth per day, or 2 thousand tons per year”!!! Imagine, 5-6 tons, but we rarely hear reports that someone was killed by a meteorite, why?
Firstly, small meteorites fall, such that we don’t even notice, a lot falls on uninhabited lands, and secondly: deaths from meteorite impact are not excluded, type in the search engine, in addition, meteorites repeatedly fell near people, on dwellings (Tunguska fireball, Chelyabinsk meteorite, meteorite fall on people in India).
More than 4 billion space bodies fall to Earth every day. this is the name of everything that is larger than cosmic dust and smaller than an asteroid, - this is what sources of information about the life of the Cosmos say. Basically, these are small stones that burn out in the layers of the atmosphere before reaching the earth's surface, a few pass this line, they are called meteorites, whose total weight per day is several tons. Meteorites that still hit the Earth are called meteorites.
A meteorite falls to the Earth at a speed of 11 to 72 km per second, in the process of tremendous speed, the celestial body is heated and glows, which causes a “blowing” of a part of the meteorite, a decrease in its mass, sometimes dissolution, especially at a speed of about 25 km per second or more . When approaching the surface of the planet, the surviving celestial bodies slow down their trajectory, falling vertically, while as a rule they cool down, so there are no hot asteroids. If a meteorite splits along the “road”, a so-called meteor shower can occur, when a lot small particles crashes to the ground.
At a low speed of the meteorite, for example, several hundred meters per second, the meteorite is able to retain its previous mass. Meteorites are stone (chondrites (carbonaceous chondrites, ordinary chondrites, enstatite chondrites)
achondrites), iron (siderites) and stony-iron (pallasite, mesosiderite).
“The most common are stone meteorites (92.8% of falls).
The vast majority of stony meteorites (92.3% stony, 85.7% total number falls) - chondrites. They are called chondrites because they contain chondrules - spherical or elliptical formations of predominantly silicate composition.
Pictured are chondrites
Basically, meteorites are about 1 mm, maybe a little more .. In general, less than a bullet ... Perhaps there are a lot of them under our feet, perhaps they fell right in front of our eyes once, but we did not notice this.
So, what happens if a large meteorite that does not crumble into stone rain and does not dissolve in the layers of the atmosphere falls on Earth?
How often does this happen and what are the consequences of this?
Fallen meteorites were found by finds or by falls.
For example, according to official statistics, the following number of meteorite falls was recorded:
in 1950-59 - 61, on average per year 6.1 meteorite fall,
in 1960-69 - 66, on average per year 6.6,
in 1970-79 - 61, on average per year 6.1,
in 1980-89 - 57, on average per year 5.7,
in 1990-99 - 60, on average per year 6.0,
in 2000-09 - 72, on average per year 7.2,
in 2010-16 - 48, on average per year 6.8.
As we can see even according to official data, the number of meteorite falls is increasing in last years, decades. But, of course, we do not mean 1mm-three celestial bodies ...
Meteorites weighing from several grams to several kilograms fell to Earth in uncountable numbers. But there were not so many meteorites weighing more than a ton:
The Sikhote-Alin meteorite weighing 23 tons fell to the ground on February 12, 1947 in Russia, in the Primorsky Territory (classification - Zhelezny, IIAB),
Jilin - a meteorite weighing 4 tons fell to the ground on March 8, 1976 in China, in the province of Jilin (classification - H5 No. 59, chondrite),
Allende - a meteorite weighing 2 tons fell to the ground on February 8, 1969 in Mexico, the state of Chihuahua (CV3 classification, chondrite),
Kunya-Urgench - a meteorite weighing 1.1 tons fell to the ground on June 20, 1998 in Turkmenistan, in a city in the North-East of Turkmenistan - Tashauz (classification - chondrite, H5 No. 83),
Norton County - a meteorite weighing 1.1 tons fell to the ground on February 18, 1948 in the USA, Kansas (Aubrit classification),
Chelyabinsk - a meteorite weighing 1 ton fell to the ground on February 15, 2013 in Russia, in the Chelyabinsk region (chondrite classification, LL5 No. 102†).
Of course, the Chelyabinsk meteorite is the closest and most understandable to us. What happened when the meteorite fell? A series of shock waves during the destruction of a meteorite over Chelyabinsk region and Kazakhstan, the largest of the debris weighing about 654 kg was raised from the bottom of Lake Chebarkul in October 2016.
On February 15, 2013, at about 9:20 a.m., fragments of a small asteroid collided with the earth's surface, which collapsed as a result of deceleration in the Earth's atmosphere, the weight of the largest fragment was 654 kg, it fell into Lake Chebarkul. The superbolide collapsed in the vicinity of Chelyabinsk at an altitude of 15-25 km, a bright glow from the burning of an asteroid in the atmosphere was noticed by many residents of the city, someone even decided that this plane had crashed or a bomb had fallen, this was also the main version of the media in the first hours. The largest meteorite ever known Tunguska meteorite. The amount of released energy, according to the calculation of specialists, ranged from 100 to 44o kilotons in TNT equivalent.
According to official figures, 1,613 people were injured, mainly from broken glass from houses affected by the explosion, about 100 people were hospitalized, two were in intensive care, the total amount of damage caused to buildings was about 1 billion rubles.
The Chelyabinsk meteoroid, according to NASA's preliminary estimate, was 15 meters in size, weighing 7000 tons - these are its data before entering the Earth's atmosphere.
Important factors for assessing the potential danger of meteorites for the earth are the speed with which they approach the earth, their mass, and composition. On the one hand, the speed can destroy the asteroid to small fragments even before the earth's atmosphere, on the other hand, it can give a powerful blow if the meteorite still reaches the earth. If the asteroid flies with less force, the probability of preserving its mass is greater, but the force of its impact will not be so terrible. It is the combination of factors that is dangerous: the conservation of mass at top speed meteorite.
For example, a meteorite hitting the ground weighing more than a hundred tons at the speed of light can bring irreparable damage.
Information from the documentary.
If a round diamond ball with a diameter of 30 meters is launched towards the Earth at a speed of 3 thousand km per second, then the air will begin to participate in nuclear fusion and, under the heating of the plasma, this process can destroy the diamond sphere even before it reaches the Earth's surface: information from scientific films, on the projects of scientists. However, the chances that the diamond ball, albeit in a broken form, will reach the Earth are great, during the impact, a thousand times more energy will be released than from the most powerful nuclear weapons, and after the area in the area of \u200b\u200bthe fall is empty, the crater will be large, but the Earth has seen more. This is at 0.01 of the speed of light.
And what happens if you accelerate the sphere to 0.99% of the speed of light? Super-atomic energy will begin to act, the diamond ball will become just a cluster of carbon atoms, the sphere will flatten into a pancake, each atom in the ball will carry 70 billion volts of energy, it passes through the air, air molecules pierce through the center of the ball, then get stuck inside, it expands and reaches the Earth with a greater content of matter than at the beginning of the path, when it crashes into the surface, it will pierce the Earth at random and in breadth, creating a cone-shaped road through the root rock. The energy of the collision will blow a hole in earth's crust and will blast through a crater so large that you can see the molten mantle through it, this impact is comparable to the 50 impacts of the Chicxulub asteroid that killed the dinosaurs in the era BC. It is quite possible the end of all life on Earth, at least the extinction of all people.
And what will happen if we add more speed to our diamond sphere? Up to 0.9999999% of the speed of light? Now each carbon molecule carries 25 trillion volts of energy (!!!), which is comparable to the particles inside the Large Hadron Collider, all this will hit our planet with approximately the kinetic energy of the moon moving in orbit, this is enough to punch a huge hole in the mantle and shake earth's surface planets so that it simply melts, this with a probability of 99.99% will put an end to all life on Earth.
Add another speed to the diamond ball to 0.99999999999999999999951% of the speed of light, this is the highest speed of a mass-bearing object ever recorded by man. Particle "Oh, my God!".
“The Oh-My-God particle (“Oh my God!”) is a cosmic shower caused by ultra-high energy cosmic rays, detected on the evening of October 15, 1991 at the Dugway Test Site (English) in Utah using a detector cosmic rays"Eye of the Fly" (English) owned by the University of Utah. The energy of the particle that caused the shower was estimated at 3 × 1020 eV (3 × 108 TeV), about 20 million times greater than the energy of particles in the radiation of extragalactic objects, in other words, the atomic nucleus had a kinetic energy equivalent to 48 joules.
This energy has a 142-gram baseball moving at a speed of 93.6 kilometers per hour.
The Oh-My-God particle had such a high kinetic energy that it traveled through space at about 99.99999999999999999999951% of the speed of light."
This proton from Space, which “flared up” the atmosphere over Utah in 1991 and it moved almost at the speed of light, the cascade of particles that were formed from its movement could not even be reproduced by the LHC (collider), such phenomena are detected several times a year and no one does not understand what it is. It seems to be coming from a galactic explosion, but what happened to cause these particles to come to Earth in such a hurry and why they didn't slow down remains a mystery.
And if the diamond ball moves at the speed of the particle “Oh my God!”, then nothing and no Computer Engineering does not simulate the development of events in advance, this plot is a godsend for dreamers and creators of blockbusters.
But roughly the picture will be like this: a diamond ball rushes through the atmosphere without noticing it and disappears into the earth's crust, a cloud of expanding plasma with radiation diverges from the entry point, while energy pulsates outward through the body of the planet, as a result, the planet becomes hot, begins to glow, the Earth will be knocked out into another orbit Naturally, all living things will die.
Taking into account the picture of the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which we recently observed, the scenarios of the fall of meteorites (diamond balls) from the film presented in the article, the plots of science fiction films - we can assume that:
- the fall of a meteorite, despite all the assurances of scientists that it is realistic to predict the fall of a large celestial body to Earth in decades, given the achievements in the field of astronautics, cosmonautics, astronomy - in some cases it is impossible to predict !! And the proof Chelyabinsk meteorite which no one predicted. And the proof of this is the particle “Oh, my God!” with their protons over Utah in 91…. As the saying goes, we don't know what hour and day the end will come. However, for several millennia, humanity has been living and living ...
- first of all, we should expect medium-sized meteorites, while the destruction will be similar to the fall of the Chelyabinsk one: windows will burst, buildings will be destroyed, perhaps part of the area will be burned out ...
Terrible consequences, as with the alleged death of dinosaurs, are hardly to be expected, but cannot be ruled out.
- it is unrealistic to protect yourself from the forces of the Cosmos, unfortunately, meteorites make it clear to us that we are only small people on a small planet in the vast Universe, therefore it is impossible to predict the outcome, the time of contact of the asteroid with the earth is impossible, breaking through the atmosphere every year more and more actively, the Cosmos seems to be claiming to our territory. Get ready, don’t get ready, and if the forces of heaven send an asteroid to our Earth, you can’t hide in any corner .... So meteorites are also sources of deep philosophy, rethinking of life.
And here is another news! We just recently prophesied another end of the world!!! October 12, 2017, that is, we have very little time left. Presumably. A giant asteroid is heading towards Earth! This information looms in all the news, but we are so accustomed to such cries that we do not react ... what if ....
In the Earth, according to the versions of scientists, there are already holes and cracks, it is burning at the seams ... If an asteroid reaches it, and a huge one, as predicted, it simply cannot stand it. You can only save yourself by being in the bunker.
Wait and see.
There are opinions of psychologists that such intimidation is an attempt in any way to instill fear in humanity and control it in this way. The asteroid is indeed planning to pass the Earth soon, but it will go very far, one in a million chance that it will hit the Earth.
Well, since everyone is talking about meteorites and their falls on our planet,
I propose to get acquainted with the top 10 largest meteorites that fell to Earth.
This meteorite called Sutter Mill appeared on the Earth on April 22, 2012, moving at a breakneck speed of 29 km / s.
It flew over the states of Nevada and California, scattering its red-hot ones, and exploded over Washington.
The power of the explosion was about 4 kilotons of TNT.
For comparison, the power of yesterday's meteorite explosion when falling on
Chelyabinsk amounted to 300 tons of TNT. The scientists found out
that the Sutter Mill meteorite appeared in the early days
the existence of our solar system, and the cosmic body is the progenitor
formed over 4566.57 million years ago.
Fragments of the Sutter Mill meteorite:
Almost a year ago, on February 11, 2012, about a hundred meteorite stones fell
on an area of 100 km in one of the regions of China.
The largest meteorite found weighed 12.6 kg. It is believed that meteorites
came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
This meteorite fell in Peru near Lake Titicaca, near the border with Bolivia.
Eyewitnesses claimed that at first there was a loud noise,
similar to the sound of a falling plane, but then they saw a certain falling body, engulfed in flames.
A bright trace from a cosmic body heated to white heat,
entering the Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor.
At the site of the fall from the explosion, a crater with a diameter of 30 and
6 meters deep, from which a fountain of boiling water gushed.
Probably, the meteorite contained toxic substances, since
1,500 people living nearby developed severe headaches.
Location of the meteorite impact in Peru:
By the way, most often stone meteorites (92.8%), consisting mainly of silicates, fall to the Earth.
The meteorite that fell on Chelyabinsk was iron, according to the first estimates. Fragments of the Peruvian meteorite:
The meteorite fell near the Turkmen city of Kunya-Urgench, hence its name.
Before the fall, the inhabitants saw a bright light. The largest part of the meteorite, weighing 820 kg,
fell into a cotton field, forming a funnel about 5 meters.
This one, over 4 billion years old, has been certified by the International Meteoritic Society and
considered the largest among stone meteorites of all
falling in the CIS and the third in the world. Fragment of the Turkmen meteorite:
Iron meteorite Sterlitamak weighing 315 kg fell on the field of the state farm
20 km west of the city of Sterlitamak on the night of May 17-18, 1990.
When a meteorite fell, a crater with a diameter of 10 meters was formed.
At first, small metal fragments were found,
and only a year later, at a depth of 12 meters, the largest fragment weighing 315 kg was found.
Now the meteorite (0.5 x 0.4 x 0.25 meters) is in
Museum of Archeology and Ethnography of the Ufa Scientific Center Russian Academy Sciences. Fragments of a meteorite.
On the left is the same fragment weighing 315 kg:
In March 1976, in the Chinese province of Jilin,
the largest meteor rock shower in the world, lasting 37 minutes.
Space bodies fell to the earth at a speed of 12 km/sec. Fantasy on the theme of meteorites:
Then they found about a hundred meteorites, including the largest - the 1.7-ton Jilin (Girin) meteorite.
These are the pebbles that rained down from the sky on China for 37 minutes:
The meteorite fell in the Far East in the Ussuri taiga in the Sikhote-Alin mountains on February 12, 1947.
It was crushed in the atmosphere and fell out in the form of iron rain over an area of 10 sq. km.
After the fall, more than 30 craters with a diameter of 7 to 28 m and a depth of up to 6 meters were formed.
About 27 tons of meteorite material was collected.
Pieces of iron that fell from the sky during a meteor shower:
Goba meteorite, Namibia, 1920
Meet Goba - the largest meteorite ever found! Strictly speaking, it fell about 80,000 years ago.
This iron giant weighs about 66 tons and has a volume of 9 cubic meters. fell
in prehistoric times, but was found in Namibia in 1920 near Grotfontein.
The Goba meteorite is mainly composed of iron and is considered the most
heaviest of all celestial bodies of this kind that have ever appeared on Earth.
It is preserved at the crash site in southwestern Africa, in Namibia, near the Goba West farm.
It is also the largest piece of iron of natural origin on Earth. Since 1920, the meteorite has shrunk slightly:
erosion, scientific research and vandalism did their job: the meteorite "lost weight" to 60 tons.
The mystery of the Tunguska meteorite, 1908
June 30, 1908 at about 07:00 in the morning over the territory of the basin
Yenisei from the southeast to the northwest flew a large fireball.
The flight ended with an explosion at an altitude of 7-10 km above the uninhabited area of the taiga.
The blast wave doubled Earth And
was recorded by observatories around the world. The power of the explosion is estimated at 40-50 megatons,
which corresponds to the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb.
The flight speed of the space giant was tens of kilometers per second.
Weight - from 100 thousand to 1 million tons!
Area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River:
As a result of the explosion, trees were knocked down over an area of more than 2,000 square meters. km,
window panes in houses were broken in several hundred
kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. Blast wave within a radius of about 40 km
Animals were destroyed, people suffered. Within a few days in the territory from the Atlantic to the central
In Siberia, an intense glow of the sky and luminous clouds were observed:
But what was it? If it was a meteorite, then at the site of its fall
a huge crater half a kilometer deep should have appeared.
But none of the expeditions managed to find it ... Tunguska meteorite
is, on the one hand, one of the most well-studied phenomena,
on the other hand, to one of the most mysterious phenomena the past century.
The celestial body exploded in the air, and there are no remnants of it,
except for the consequences of the explosion, it was not found on the ground.
Meteor shower of 1833
On the night of November 13, 1833, a meteor shower fell over the eastern United States.
It went on continuously for 10 hours!
During this time, about 240,000 meteorites of various sizes fell to the Earth's surface.
The source of the meteor shower of 1833 was the most powerful
known meteor showers. Now this stream is called the Leonids in honor of the constellation Leo,
against which it is visible every year in mid-November.
On a much smaller scale, of course. Leonid meteor shower, November 19, 2001:
Every day, about 20 meteor showers pass close to the Earth.
About 50 comets are known that could potentially cross the orbit of our planet. Earth Collision
with relatively small cosmic bodies several tens of meters in size occur once every 10 years.
Space bodies are constantly falling on our planet. Some of them are the size of a grain of sand, others can weigh several hundred kilograms and even tons. Canadian scientists from the Astrophysical Institute of Ottawa claim that a meteor shower with a total mass of more than 21 tons falls on Earth every year, and individual meteorites weigh from a few grams to 1 ton.
In this article, we will recall the 10 largest meteorites that fell to Earth.
Meteorite Sutter Mill, April 22, 2012
This meteorite called Sutter Mill appeared near the Earth on April 22, 2012, moving at a breakneck speed of 29 km / s. It flew over the states of Nevada and California, scattering its red-hot fragments, and exploded over Washington. The power of the explosion was about 4 kilotons of TNT. For comparison, yesterday's capacity was 300 kilotons of TNT.
Scientists have found that the Sutter Mill meteorite appeared in the early days of its existence, and the cosmic progenitor body was formed over 4566.57 million years ago.
Almost a year ago, on February 11, 2012, about a hundred meteorite stones fell over an area of 100 km in one of the regions of China. The largest meteorite found weighed 12.6 kg. The meteorites are believed to have come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Meteorite from Peru, September 15, 2007
This meteorite fell in Peru near Lake Titicaca, near the border with Bolivia. Eyewitnesses claimed that at first there was a loud noise, similar to the sound of a falling plane, but then they saw a certain falling body, engulfed in fire.
A bright trail from a cosmic body heated to white heat that entered the Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor.
A crater 30 meters in diameter and 6 meters deep formed at the site of the fall from the explosion, from which a fountain of boiling water gushed. The meteorite probably contained poisonous substances, as 1,500 people living nearby developed severe headaches.
By the way, most often stone meteorites (92.8%), consisting mainly of silicates, fall to the Earth. , was iron, according to the first estimates.
Meteorite Kunya-Urgench from Turkmenistan, June 20, 1998
The meteorite fell near the Turkmen city of Kunya-Urgench, hence its name. Before the fall, the inhabitants saw a bright light. The largest part of the meteorite, weighing 820 kg, fell into a cotton field, forming a funnel about 5 meters.
This one, over 4 billion years old, has been certified by the International Meteoritic Society and is considered the largest among stone meteorites from all fallen in the CIS and the third in the world.
Fragment of the Turkmen meteorite:
Meteorite Sterlitamak, May 17, 1990
Iron meteorite Sterlitamak weighing 315 kg fell on a state farm field 20 km west of the city of Sterlitamak on the night of May 17-18, 1990. When a meteorite fell, a crater with a diameter of 10 meters was formed.
First, small metal fragments were found, and only a year later, at a depth of 12 meters, the largest fragment weighing 315 kg was found. Now the meteorite (0.5 x 0.4 x 0.25 meters) is in the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography of the Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Fragments of a meteorite. On the left is the same fragment weighing 315 kg:
The largest meteor shower, China, March 8, 1976
In March 1976, the world's largest meteorite rock shower took place in the Chinese province of Jilin, lasting 37 minutes. Space bodies fell to the earth at a speed of 12 km/sec.
Fantasy on the theme of meteorites:
Then they found about a hundred meteorites, including the largest - the 1.7-ton Jilin (Girin) meteorite.
These are the pebbles that rained down from the sky on China for 37 minutes:
Meteorite Sikhote-Alin, Far East, February 12, 1947
The meteorite fell in the Far East in the Ussuri taiga in the Sikhote-Alin mountains on February 12, 1947. It was crushed in the atmosphere and fell out in the form of iron rain over an area of 10 sq. km.
After the fall, more than 30 craters with a diameter of 7 to 28 m and a depth of up to 6 meters were formed. About 27 tons of meteorite material was collected.
Pieces of iron that fell from the sky during a meteor shower:
Goba meteorite, Namibia, 1920
Meet Goba - largest meteorite ever found! Strictly speaking, it fell about 80,000 years ago. This iron giant weighs about 66 tons and has a volume of 9 cubic meters. fell in prehistoric times, and was found in Namibia in 1920 near Grotfontein.
The Goba meteorite is mainly composed of iron and is considered the heaviest of all celestial bodies of this kind that have ever appeared on Earth. It is preserved at the crash site in southwestern Africa, in Namibia, near the Goba West farm. It is also the largest piece of iron of natural origin on Earth. Since 1920, the meteorite has slightly decreased: erosion, scientific research and vandalism have done their job: the meteorite has “lost” up to 60 tons.
The mystery of the Tunguska meteorite, 1908
On June 30, 1908, at about 07:00 in the morning, a large fireball flew over the territory of the Yenisei basin from the southeast to the northwest. The flight ended with an explosion at an altitude of 7-10 km above the uninhabited area of the taiga. The blast wave circled the globe twice and was recorded by observatories around the world.
The power of the explosion is estimated at 40-50 megatons, which corresponds to the energy of the most powerful hydrogen bomb. The flight speed of the space giant was tens of kilometers per second. Weight - from 100 thousand to 1 million tons!
Area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River:
As a result of the explosion, trees were knocked down over an area of more than 2,000 square meters. km, window panes in houses were broken several hundred kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. Animals were destroyed by the blast wave within a radius of about 40 km, people were injured. For several days, an intense glow of the sky and luminous clouds were observed in the territory from the Atlantic to central Siberia:
But what was it? If it was a meteorite, then a huge crater half a kilometer deep should have appeared at the site of its fall. But none of the expeditions could find him ...
The Tunguska meteorite is, on the one hand, one of the most well-studied phenomena, on the other hand, one of the most mysterious phenomena of the past century. The celestial body exploded in the air, and no remnants of it, except for the consequences of the explosion, were found on the ground.
Meteor shower of 1833
On the night of November 13, 1833, a meteor shower fell over the eastern United States. It went on continuously for 10 hours! During this time, about 240,000 meteorites of various sizes fell to the Earth's surface. The meteor shower of 1833 was the most powerful meteor shower known. Now this stream is called the Leonids in honor of the constellation Leo, against which it is visible every year in mid-November. On a much smaller scale, of course.
The Ural meteorite for some time distracted scientists from another space object - an asteroid, which is approaching the Earth at this moment. According to calculations, it will approach the minimum distance to our planet at 23:20 Moscow time. This unique event will be broadcast live on the NASA website. The asteroid will be visible to residents of Asia and Australia, as well as, possibly, some parts of Eastern Europe.
In a little more than 2 hours, the DA14 object will pass the Earth at a distance of 28 thousand kilometers - this is closer than some satellites fly. If this asteroid weighing 130 tons and 45 meters in diameter collided with our planet, the explosion would be equal to one thousand Hiroshima. There was even an assumption that the meteorite that fell in the Urals could be part of this space monster and that other, larger ones would follow it. However, most scientists do not see a connection with the DA14 asteroid and the Ural meteorite.
"As to whether we are threatened by Armageddon or not. It is now known for certain. All asteroids larger than one kilometer in diameter, which bring such a catastrophe on a large scale to the Earth, they are all known and have well-known orbits, they are all cataloged and observed There is no danger from them," Lidia Rykhlova, head of the department of space astrometry at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, assured.
While watching a large asteroid, the meteorite that fell in the Urals was overlooked. However, it was practically impossible to see it before entering the atmosphere - neither civilian observatories nor missile defense radars can do this - the size is too small and the speed is high. The military says that even if such a meteorite is found, destroying such objects modern systems Air defense is not yet under force. Already in hindsight, scientists deduced the data of a celestial body that had already fallen in the Urals - a mass of several tons, a speed of 15 kilometers per second, an angle of incidence of 45 degrees, and a shock wave power of several kilotons. At an altitude of 50 kilometers, the object collapsed into 3 parts and almost completely burned out in the atmosphere.
"No more than 10 meters in diameter, it flew at supersonic speed and therefore gave rise to a shock wave. This shock wave caused all these destructions, people were injured not by fragments of a meteorite, but by a shock wave. Now, if a supersonic plane would pass on the same altitude, for example, God forbid over Moscow, the destruction would have been the same,” said the deputy director of the State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg Sergei Lamzin.
Any space object that has reached the Earth's atmosphere and left a trace in it is called a meteorite by scientists. As a rule, they are small in size and, moving in the air at a speed of several kilometers per second, completely burn out. And yet, about 5 tons of cosmic matter falls to Earth every day in the form of dust and fine grains of sand. Almost all space guests come to us from the so-called asteroid belt, which is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
“A kind of garbage dump in the solar system, where all the debris is concentrated. Collisions between asteroids occur in this belt. As a result, some debris is formed that can acquire an orbit that intersects the Earth’s orbit,” said Mikhail Nazarov.
However, some scientists believe that it was not a meteorite that fell near Chelyabinsk at all. They are sure that no one will ever find any fragments, just as they did not find the fragments of the Tunguska meteorite. We are most likely talking about a cooled comet, which consists of frozen gases.
"If the nucleus of a comet of the first generation invades the Earth, then it almost completely burns up in the Earth's atmosphere, and it is impossible to find any remnants on the surface. This is similar to the Tunguska phenomenon, when no remnants of the body were found, but there was a large fall of forest on large area and the trees were all heavily charred," said Vladislav Leonov, a researcher at the Department of Space Astrometry at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Nevertheless, the search for the remains of a meteorite near Chelyabinsk continues. At the same time, not only rescuers and scientists are looking for, now dozens of meteorite hunters have already rushed to the area of the alleged fall. The price of some of them on the black market can reach up to several thousand rubles per gram.