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 of 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, they are opened for public viewing, 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, but on the contrary, 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 puff 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, the 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 in the 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. 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.
Our favorite blue planet is constantly hit by space debris, but due to the fact that most space objects burn up or fall apart in the atmosphere, this most often does not pose any serious problems. Even if some object reaches the surface of the planet, it is most often small, and the damage it causes is negligible.
However, of course, there are very rare cases when something very large flies through the atmosphere and in this case very significant damage is inflicted. Fortunately, such falls are extremely rare, but it is worth knowing about them at least in order to remember that there are forces in the Universe that can disrupt the everyday life of people in a couple of minutes. Where and when did these monsters fall to Earth? Let's turn to the geological records and find out:
10. Barringer Crater, Arizona, USA
Arizona apparently lacked the fact that they had the Grand Canyon, so about 50,000 years ago, another tourist attraction was added there when a 50-meter meteorite landed in the northern desert, which left behind a crater 1200 meters in diameter and deep at 180 meters. Scientists believe that the meteorite, which resulted in the formation of a crater, flew at a speed of about 55 thousand kilometers per hour, and caused an explosion more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, about 150 times. Some scientists initially doubted that the crater was formed by a meteorite, since the meteorite itself is not there, however, according to modern ideas scientists, the stone simply melted during the explosion, spreading molten nickel and iron around the surrounding area.
Although its diameter is not that big, the lack of erosion makes it an impressive sight. What's more, it's one of the few meteorite craters that looks true to its origin, making it a top-notch tourist destination, just the way the universe wanted it to be.
9. Lake Bosumtwi Crater, Ghana 
When someone discovers a natural lake that is almost perfectly round, it's suspicious enough. That is what Lake Bosumtwi is, reaching about 10 kilometers in diameter, and located 30 kilometers southeast of Kumasi, Ghana. The crater was formed from a collision with a meteorite with a diameter of about 500 meters, which fell to Earth about 1.3 million years ago. Attempts to study the crater in detail are quite difficult, as the lake is difficult to reach, it is surrounded by dense forest, and the local Ashanti people consider it a holy place (they believe that it is forbidden to touch the water with iron or use metal boats, which is why getting to nickel at the bottom of the lake is problematic). Still, it's one of the best-preserved craters on the planet right now, and a good example of the destructive power of megarocks from space.
8. Mistastin Lake, Labrador, Canada 
The Mistatin Impact Crater, located in Canada's Labrador Province, is an impressive 17-by-11-kilometer depression in the earth that formed about 38 million years ago. The crater was likely originally much larger, but has shrunk over time due to the erosion it has undergone due to the many glaciers that have passed through Canada over the past million years. This crater is unique in that, unlike most impact craters, it is elliptical rather than round, indicating that the meteorite hit at an acute angle, rather than level like most meteorite impacts. Even more unusual is the fact that there is a small island in the middle of the lake, which may be the central rise of the complex structure of the crater.
7. Gosses Bluff, Northern Territory, Australia
This 142 million year old and 22 km diameter crater located in the center of Australia is an impressive sight both from the air and from the ground. The crater was formed as a result of the fall of an asteroid with a diameter of 22 kilometers, which crashed into the surface of the Earth at a speed of 65,000 kilometers per hour and formed a funnel almost 5 kilometers deep. The collision energy was about 10 to the twentieth power of Joules, so life on the continent faced great problems after this collision. The highly deformed crater is one of the most significant impact craters in the world and does not let us forget the power of a single large rock.
6. Clearwater Lakes, Quebec, Canada 
Finding one impact crater is cool, but finding two impact craters next to each other is doubly cool. This is exactly what happened when an asteroid broke in two upon entering Earth's atmosphere 290 million years ago, creating two impact craters on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay. Since then, erosion and glaciers have severely destroyed the original craters, but what remains is still an impressive sight. The diameter of one lake is 36 kilometers, and the second is about 26 kilometers. Given that the craters formed 290 million years ago and were heavily eroded, one can only imagine how large they were originally.
5. Tunguska meteorite, Siberia, Russia
This is a controversial point, since no parts of the hypothetical meteorite remained, and what exactly fell into Siberia 105 years ago is not completely clear. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that something large and moving at high speed exploded near the Tunguska River in June 1908, leaving behind fallen trees over an area of 2000 square kilometers. The explosion was so strong that it was recorded by instruments even in the UK.
Due to the fact that no pieces of the meteorite were found, some believe that the object may not have been a meteorite at all, but a small part of a comet (which, if true, explains the absence of meteorite fragments). Fans of conspiracies believe that an alien spaceship actually exploded here. Although this theory is completely unfounded and is pure water speculation, we have to admit that it sounds interesting.
4. Manicouagan Crater, Canada 
The Manicouagan Reservoir, also known as the Eye of Quebec, is located in a crater formed 212 million years ago when an asteroid 5 kilometers in diameter hit Earth. The 100-kilometer crater that was left after the fall was destroyed by glaciers and other erosive processes, but even at the moment it remains an impressive sight. What is unique about this crater is that nature did not fill it with water, forming an almost perfectly round lake - the crater basically remained land surrounded by a ring of water. A great place to build a castle here.
3. Sudbury Basin, Ontario, Canada 
Apparently, Canada and impact craters are very fond of each other. Singer Alanis Morrisette's hometown is a favorite place for meteorite impacts - the largest meteorite impact crater in Canada is located near Sudbury, Ontario. This crater is already 1.85 billion years old, and its dimensions are 65 kilometers long, 25 wide and 14 deep - 162 thousand people live here, and many mining enterprises are located, who discovered a century ago that the crater is very rich in nickel due to for the fallen asteroid. The crater is so rich in this element that about 10% of the world's nickel production is obtained here.
2. Chicxulub Crater, Mexico
Perhaps the fall of this meteorite caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, but this is definitely the most powerful collision with an asteroid in the entire history of the Earth. The impact occurred about 65 million years ago, when an asteroid the size of a small city crashed into Earth with an energy of 100 teratonnes of TNT. For those who like hard data, that's roughly 1 billion kilotons. Compare this energy with the 20 kiloton atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the impact of this collision becomes clearer.
The collision not only created a crater 168 kilometers in diameter, but also caused megatsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions all over the Earth, which greatly changed environment and sentenced dinosaurs to death (and apparently many other creatures). This vast crater, located on the Yucatan Peninsula near the village of Chicxulub (after which the crater was named), can only be seen from space, which is why scientists discovered it relatively recently.
1. Vredefort Dome Crater, South Africa
Although the Chicxulub crater is better known, compared to the 300 kilometers wide Vredefort crater in the Republic of South Africa, it is a common pothole. Vredefort is currently the largest impact crater on Earth. Fortunately, the meteorite / asteroid that fell 2 billion years ago (its diameter was about 10 kilometers) did not cause significant harm to life on Earth, since multicellular organisms did not yet exist at that time. The collision no doubt greatly changed the climate of the Earth, but there was no one to notice it.
At the moment, the original crater is heavily eroded, but from space, its remnants look impressive and are a great visual example of how scary the universe can be.
On November 30, 1954, a meteorite hit the roof of the house of an American Ann Hodgesy and bruised her in the shoulder and thigh. The woman's health did not cause concern, but she spent several days in the hospital. Today, Ann is the only person hit by a meteorite, although about 4 billion of these celestial bodies fall to Earth every day.
Over the entire history of observations, scientists have counted 24 thousand. fallen meteorites, 34 of which, according to astronomers, are of Martian origin. Astronomers have calculated: the probability that a meteorite will hit a person is 1 chance in 180 years.
The longest meteor shower lasted 10 hours
On the night of November 13, 1833, the longest meteor shower in the history of planet Earth took place in the eastern United States, which lasted for 10 hours. The meteor shower occurred during the most powerful meteor shower, which today is called the Leonids. In total, about 240 thousand meteorites fell to earth that night different size. A similar phenomenon can be observed annually in mid-November, of course, on a more modest scale.
The largest meteorite to hit Earth is 80,000 years old
The largest meteorite fell to Earth in prehistoric times. It was found in 1920 in Namibia at Hoba West Farm, located near the town of Grootfontein, by farmer Jacobus. The Goba meteorite was unearthed and left in the place where it was found. The weight of this iron giant is 66 tons with a volume of 9 cubic meters. and dimensions of 2.7 by 2.7 meters. Today, the Goba meteorite is the largest piece of iron of natural origin. True, since the meteorite was found, it has “lost” 6 tons, and all because of erosion and vandalism.
The most poisonous meteorite fell in Peru
A meteorite that fell on September 15, 2007 near Lake Titicaca in Peru made a lot of noise. Eyewitnesses first heard a noise resembling the sound of a falling plane, and then they saw a fiery body engulfed in fire. At the site of the fall of the meteorite, a crater 6 meters deep and 30 meters in diameter was formed, and a fountain of boiling water began to beat from the crater. Apparently, the meteorite contained some toxic substances, since 1.5 thousand local residents became seriously ill, and severe headaches began.
Chelyabinsk fireball: the most powerful explosion of a cosmic body since the Tunguska meteorite
On February 15, 2013, a meteorite exploded over Chelyabinsk, the energy of which is estimated by scientists at 500 kilotons of TNT, which is more than 100 times greater than the Sutters Mill meteorite that exploded in 2012 in the United States. The diameter of the meteorite before the explosion was, according to scientists, 18–20 meters, and the weight was 13 thousand tons. The largest fragment of a celestial body weighing 600 kg was lifted from the bottom of Lake Chebarkul.
Scientists suggest that the Chelyabinsk meteorite is part of a larger asteroid from which it separated 1.2 million years ago.
The scale of the damage is impressive. In Chelyabinsk alone, windows were broken in 4.1 thousand houses, and 1.2 thousand people asked for medical help. Collapsed in nearby villages dropped ceilings, window frames were squeezed out, cracks appeared in the walls, power supply stopped, gas supply and mobile communications were interrupted.
The diameter of the largest meteorite crater on Earth is about 300 km
The Vredefort impact crater in Johannesburg (South Africa), with a diameter of about 300 km, is today considered the largest meteorite impact crater on Earth. It occupies 6% of South Africa. Its age is estimated at 1.9 billion years. Currently, 3 cities and a lake are located in the center of the crater.
The largest meteorite crater in Russia is the Karsky crater, located on the shores of Baydaratskaya Bay on the Yugorsky Peninsula, with a diameter of 120 km.
The largest collection of meteorites is in Russia
The largest collection of meteorites is in the Mining Museum of St. Petersburg - 300 celestial bodies. The largest specimen on display is a 450-kilogram meteorite. To be precise, this is part of the giant Sikhote-Alin meteorite, which fell apart on February 12, 1947 over the Ussuri taiga.
The decree on the "search for celestial bodies" was issued at one time by Empress Catherine II. The first exhibit was the Pallas Iron meteorite, which was discovered by Academician P.S. Pallas in the village of Medvedkovo, Krasnoyarsk Territory, in one of the Great Siberian expeditions. It is known that this meteorite was found in 1749 by the blacksmith Yakov Medvedev, who used its pieces to make various products. The block, weighing 687 kg, reached St. Petersburg from Siberia in 10 years. Later, the meteorite was cut into 2 parts, which are exhibited today in the museum.
The owner of the world's largest private collection of meteorites is Robert Haag from the USA. He collected heavenly stones from the age of 12. Today he has 2 tons of meteorites in his collection.
The most expensive meteorite went under the hammer for 330 thousand dollars
Today, meteorites can be bought in the United States at various auctions, as well as over the Internet. The cost of 1 gram varies from $1 to $1000. At the same time, Martian meteorites are valued much more expensively by collectors.Today, collecting meteorites has become fashionable and profitable, according to experts from the largest auction houses. Interest in meteorites was sparked in 1996 when NASA reported that the 4.5 billion-year-old Hellen Hills 84001 meteorite found in Antarctica contained the remains of microorganisms that once lived on Mars.
The most expensive meteorite sold at auction today is a fragment of the Dar al Ghani 1058 meteorite, sold in the United States for $ 330 thousand. The weight of this space guest is 2 kg, and its distinguishing feature- flat shape. The meteorite was discovered in Libya in 1998. Dar al Ghani 1058 was not only the most expensive meteorite, but also the largest that has ever gone under the hammer.
A fragment of the Seimchan meteorite, which was found in the 1960s in Siberia, was sold for $ 44 thousand, which turned out to be 12 times higher original cost lot.
A meteorite that fell on a cow in 1972 was sold for $1,300.
Egyptian pharaohs wore meteorite jewelry
Scientists who study ancient Egypt have proven that the decorations of the pharaohs of this period are of extraterrestrial origin. Recently, 9 metal beads were found near the city of Al-Girza, which were attributed to the Gerze culture (4th century BC). British scientists examined the jewelry using a tomograph and stated that the iron jewelry was made from a meteorite. Scientists came to such conclusions, since up to 30% of nickel was found in the composition of jewelry, and their age is more than 5 thousand years. It is interesting that the first data on the production of iron in this region date back only to the 7th century BC. BC. The metal is characterized by the Widmanstetten structure - this is the name of the pattern of large crystals that appear inside the meteorite during slow cooling.
Controversy rages around Buddhist artifact from the Ching meteorite
In 2009, at one of the auctions, a 10-kilogram sculpture "Iron Man" was sold - a statue of the Buddhist god Vaishravana, belonging to the pre-Buddhist Bon tradition of the 12th century. The statue was first discovered in 1938 by a Nazi expedition led by Ernst Schäfer. Prior to being sold at auction, the artifact was kept in a private collection. The results of geochemical analyzes showed that the statue was carved from ataxite, a very rare class of meteorites that is characterized by a high content of nickel. The auction claimed that the ancient statue was carved from a piece of the Chinga meteorite that fell about 15,000 years ago somewhere between Mongolia and Siberia.
Doubts about the origin of the sculpture were expressed by a specialist in Buddhism from Germany, Achim Bayer. Without denying the extraterrestrial origin of the material, the scientist claims that the Iron Man is a fake of the 20th century, and not an ancient artifact. Bayer points to the typical “pseudo-Tibetan features” of the sculpture: the object is “dressed” not in boots, but in European low shoes, he is not wearing traditional Buddhist attire, but trousers, a large beard, which Tibetan and Mongolian sacred sculptures never had, and a headdress and does look like a Roman helmet.
Bayer suspects that the sculpture was made in Europe between 1910 and 1970 specifically for sale at an antiquities auction, and that the story of the Schaefer expedition was made up by the seller to raise the price.
A meteorite crushed the Pope as conceived by an Italian sculptor
The Italian Maurizio Cattelano, who is called a provocateur in art, used the image of a meteorite to demonstrate the deconstruction of such binary oppositions as eternal-momentary, divine-human, sacred-profane, nature-civilization. He embodied his idea in the Ninth Hour sculpture, which was sold at Christie's for $886,000.
The sculpture depicts John Paul II, who was crushed by a meteorite. Cattelan assures that he did not want to say anything offensive, but only reminded that "that any power has an expiration date, like milk."
You can read about the most beautiful meteorite that fell to Earth, which is considered to be the Fukang meteorite.
March 15th, 2017Often our planet is attacked by various space objects. Most of them burn up in the atmosphere before reaching the surface of the Earth. Those that evaporate we call shooting stars or meteors (remnants of comets). However, some larger lucky ones, meteorites, still manage to sometimes reach the surface of the Earth, on which they can lie for thousands of years unchanged.
Asteroids are space objects even larger in size. According to one theory, one such rock left the Earth without dinosaurs about 63 million years ago, and with another like it, 2012 DA14, we narrowly avoided a collision 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 on the meteorite were not formed because it partially burned out while getting to Earth. The thing is that it has rusted for hundreds of millions of years, lying in the humid forests of Western Oregon.
The meteorite was found at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1906. Before you get to the museum, an interesting story happened to the meteorite.
Initially, the meteorite was discovered by the Indians, who moved it to the territory of the Willamette Valley, Oregon. This assumption arose due to the fact that the impact crater was not found. It is believed to be in Canada.
The Indians worshiped the stone, calling it a guest from the moon, and the rainwater collected in the recesses of the stone was used by them 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 he three months slowly moved the find to his site.
However, he 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 lives.
After the stone ended up in the museum, the Oregon Indians demanded the return of the meteorite, as it had been the subject of their religious cult for many centuries and took part in the 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, under which a ceremony could be held on the territory of the museum once a year.
The largest meteorites
Mbozi meteorite
This meteorite was discovered in the 1930s in Tanzania. The meteorite is almost 1 meter high, 3 meters long, 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 because of various taboos. They called it "kimondo", which is translated from the Swahili language as "meteor".
Interestingly, there is no crater at the place where the meteorite was discovered. This suggests that after the collision with the Earth, the meteorite rolled over the surface for some time.
90 percent of the meteorite consists of iron, like most of all its known counterparts, this also explains its dark color. On the stone are very noticeable traces of melting and heating to very high temperatures, which is a consequence of passing through the upper atmosphere.
People dug a ditch around the meteorite, since Mbozi was originally partially submerged in the ground. They left a layer of soil under it, which later became a natural pedestal.
The largest meteorites
Meteorite Cape York
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 by ship to the American Museum of Natural History 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 own language: "a-ni-gi-to."
They decided to name the pebble, which before that the Eskimos, who were the first to find a meteorite, called "Tent". "Anigito" took root better.
The second largest fragment of the meteorite is called Agpalilik (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 science center of the city of Sinaloa.
El Chaco meteorite
This meteorite is the second largest meteorite ever to hit the Earth. It weighs almost twice as much as the previous one on this list - 37 tons!
He 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, the area of \u200b\u200bwhich is 60 square meters.
El Chaco was discovered in 1969 with a metal detector, because it was underground at a depth of 5 meters.
Meteorite hunter Robert Haag tried to steal it in 1990, but the local police responded in time.
Last year, in 2016, another fragment was discovered and brought to the surface, which, according to assumptions, is 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 has never been moved. It is twice as heavy as its closest rival El Paco: this monster weighs 60 tons.
The stone 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 were preserved.
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 has never been 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 did their job, so today Goba has lost weight to 60 tons.
Goba is by far the largest piece of iron of natural origin. It covers an area of 6.5 square meters. It supposedly fell to Earth about 80,000 years ago and hasn't moved since then due to its sheer size.
Oddly enough, but there was never a need to dig it out. According to one theory, due to its relatively flat shape, the meteorite glided over the surface rather than deepening into the ground.
Meteorite Sutter Mill, April 22, 2012
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 it fell on Chelyabinsk was 300 tons of TNT. Scientists have found that the Sutter Mill meteorite appeared in the early days of the existence of our solar system, and the cosmic progenitor body was formed over 4566.57 million years ago. Fragments of the Sutter Mill meteorite:
Meteor shower in China, February 11, 2012
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. 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:
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, more than 4 billion years old, received a certificate from the International Meteoritic Society and is considered the largest among the stone meteorites of all those that fell in the CIS and the third in the world. Fragment of the Turkmen meteorite:
Meteorite Sterlitamak, May 17, 1990
The Sterlitamak iron meteorite 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:
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, 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 knocked out 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 managed to find it ... 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 earth.
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 fell to the Earth's surface. different size. 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. Leonid meteor shower, November 19, 2001:
Leonid meteor shower over Monument Valley in the USA, November 19, 2012:
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. The collision of the Earth with relatively small cosmic bodies several tens of meters in size occurs once every 10 years.
