from time to time on our planet are falling various celestial bodies.They are big and small, inconspicuous, and frightening, with iron and silicate, a wide variety.The scientific name of the falling stars - meteor.This definition is used for bodies larger than 10 microns.Smaller space visitors are called micrometeorites.
What are meteorites
Almost 93% of the meteorites are stony.Among them are chondrites, consisting of silicate spheres (ordinary, carbonaceous and enstatinovye) and achondrites, past melting and concomitant differentiation in composition to silicates and metals.The rest of the body is divided into iron-stone (pallasites and mesosiderites) and pure iron.
It is important to indicate that the meteorite - it is not a meteor.These terms refer to different things.Meteorite called directly to the body, and a meteor - trail of fire formed in the atmosphere at the time of his fall.That is mistaken for "shooting star", which make wishes romantically-minded person.
Dimensions meteorites
Dimensions meteorites can be very different.Some of them with a grain of sand, others - reaching tens of tons.Representatives of the scientific community maintain that for a year on this planet gets 21 tons of extraterrestrial bodies, and the representatives of the flow can weigh from a few grams to 1,000 kilograms.
largest meteorites in the Earth's history
Sutter's Mill fell to Earth 22 April 2012.His path led over the Nevada and California, and the rate exceeded 29 kilometers per second.Above these states broke away from meteorite parts of different sizes, the main part has reached Washington and exploded above him.The power of the explosion was equal to 4,000 tons of TNT.Scientists have known for ages Skywalker - more than 4,500 million years.
In Peru, near Lake Titicaca and near the Bolivian border, September 15, 2007 there was a falling space body, fragments of which were found.About the incident only shows the pit depth of 6 to 30 meters in diameter and filled with muddy water.At the time of the accident, according to the testimony of local residents, boiled water fountain.There is a version that in the meteorite were poisonous substances, as the field of his fall from eyewitnesses started strong migraine.
In June 1998, the number of 20, about the Turkmen city of Old Urgench in the cotton field space landed guest weighing 820 kg.The diameter of the crater was about 5 meters.The International Society of meteoritic calculate the age of the body - more than 4 billion years old - and found it the largest of all that fell in the CIS, and the third largest in the world.
May night in 1990, 17 to 18 numbers, twenty kilometers from Sterlitimak dropped 315-pound meteorite.This event took place at the State Farm field in the soil which formed 10-meter crater.It goes cosmic body was loaded into the ground at 12 m.
The largest found meteorite is considered to Namibian.It bears the name of the miracle of iron Goba and has a capacity of 9 cubic meters and weight of 66 tons.His fall occurred 80,000 years ago, but only found this bar in 1920.Now he is a local landmark.
