A meteorite is really a shooting star?
From time to time, various kinds of earth fall on our Earth.cosmic bodies. They are large and small, imperceptible and frightening, iron and silicate, the most diverse. The scientific name of a falling star is a meteorite. This definition applies to bodies larger than 10 microns. Smaller space guests are called micrometeorites.
What are the meteorites
Almost 93% of meteorites are stony. Among them are chondrites consisting of silicate spheres (ordinary, carbonaceous and enstatin), and achondrites that have undergone melting and the accompanying differentiation in composition into silicates and metals. The remaining bodies are divided into iron-stone (pallasites and mesosiderides) and pure iron.
It is important to indicate that a meteorite is not a meteor. These concepts mean different things. The meteorite is called the body itself, and the meteor is the trail of fire that forms in the atmosphere during its fall. It is taken as a “shooting star”, on which romantic-minded individuals make wishes.
Meteorite dimensions
The size of the meteorites can be very different. Some of them are with a grain of sand, others reach tens of tons. Representatives of the scientific world claim that during the year 21 tons of extraterrestrial bodies fall on our planet, while representatives of the stream can weigh from a few grams to 1000 kilograms.
The largest meteorites in Earth history
Sutter Mill fell to Earth on April 22, 2012. His path lay over Nevada and California, and the speed exceeded 29 kilometers per second. Above these states, parts of different size split off from a meteorite, while the main part reached Washington and exploded directly above it. The force of the explosion was equal to 4000 tons in TNT equivalent. Scientists know the age of a celestial wanderer - more than 4,500 million years.
In Peru, near Lake Titicaca and next toBolivian border, September 15, 2007 there was a fall of the cosmic body, fragments of which were not found. About the incident only shows the pit depth of 6 and a diameter of 30 meters, filled with muddy water. At the time of the incident, according to the testimony of local residents, the water was boiling like a fountain. There is a version that there were poisonous substances in the meteorite, since the field of its fall at the witnesses began to have strong migraines.
In June 1998, on the 20th, near the TurkmenKunya-Urgench, a cosmic guest weighing 820 kg has landed on a cotton field. The diameter of the funnel was about 5 meters. The International Meteoric Society calculated the age of the body - more than 4 billion years - and recognized it as the largest of all that fell in the CIS, and the third largest in the world.
The largest of those found is considered Namibian.meteorite. This iron miracle is named Goba and has a volume of 9 cubic meters and a weight of 66 tons. Its fall occurred 80,000 years ago, but this ingot was discovered only in 1920. Now it is a local landmark.
