The largest meteorites that fell to the ground. Does not pose a health hazard

Date of publication: 03/05/2013

As soon as a meteorite exploded over Chelyabinsk, the so-called "hunters" immediately appeared. And all because on the sale of "space stones" you can seriously earn money.

Introduction

In fact, no one yet knows more precisely about what happened. Some believe that the meteorite fell into Lake Chebarkul. But nothing was found in the lake, and therefore there is a version that the meteorite did not reach the ground, but “exploded” in the air (like the Tunguska meteorite).

The meteorite caused a lot of destruction to the city and the surrounding area. The main problem is the winter cold, and many buildings have lost their windows due to the blast wave. Hospitals are packed with casualties, but these are mostly mild to moderate cases (personally, I don't know about deaths).

Business

In this world, the rarest things are usually the most expensive. That is why fragments of meteorites are very expensive. As a rule, in every country there is a group of people who are looking for and selling "space stones". Some of the shards are so valuable that the price goes up to $ 1,500 per gram!

But professional "hunters" are in no hurry to go to Chelyabinsk. And all because meteorites are different and the price for them varies greatly. Most likely a "cheap" meteorite exploded over Chelyabinsk. There is a possibility that it was generally a block of ice that burned up in the atmosphere.

Although even such a meteorite can be sold for ten dollars per gram. In addition, various meteorites quite often fall on the Earth, many simply do not notice it. And most of these meteorites are simple stone debris, the cost of which ranges from 10 to 50 cents per gram.

Expertise

Every day a person appears who claims to have found a meteorite. As a rule, in 99% of cases these are simple stones. Naturally, now in Chelyabinsk almost every tenth person offers to buy a "real" piece of meteorite from him.

Therefore, professional "hunters" conduct long examinations to find out the composition of the meteorite, its value and authenticity. The most valuable are large iron or iron stone meteorites. Small fragments are usually not needed by anyone.

Is there no meteorite in Chelyabinsk?

The search services of Chelyabinsk said they had not found meteorite fragments either in the lake or anywhere else. Immediately, people began to put forward various theories.

Most likely: the meteorite exploded and burned up in the air. And if there are fragments left after him, then they are of little value.

Conspiracy theory: The meteorite has already been pulled out of the lake by someone smarter. Or maybe the municipal authorities also wanted to make money on the meteorite ...

Alien theory: An alien ship with an alien on board fell in Chelyabinsk. But the alien quickly disappeared, and therefore no one found anything. Straight the story of Clark Kent :)

Catastrophic theory: there is a small chance that it was not a meteorite, but a failed test of some launch vehicle. But this is unlikely ...

If you find a meteorite

If you find a meteorite, then take your time to look for buyers. First, you need to determine the type of your meteorite and its approximate price. The examination can be carried out in a special expert institution. Usually, large universities have their own laboratories at the Faculty of Geology or the like. You will have to spend your time and some money, but if the examination confirms your find, then your efforts will pay off.

It's even better if you find people professionally looking for and selling meteorites. Then they will help you with expertise and sales. But you have to give them a percentage of the sale.

If you don't want to share with anyone, then look for buyers directly. Very often people try to sell meteorites through eBay. Attach photographs of your fragment, expert opinion and other documents (if any) to the application. Usually experienced meteorite dealers resell them. This means that they will try to bring down your price to the maximum. In addition, many simply will not believe you that you have a real meteorite. This means that the buyer may want to do their own additional expertise.

conclusions

It is very difficult to make money on meteorites. It’s very hard work. The meteorite must first be found, then an examination and a buyer must be found. There are always problems with searches.
However, those lucky ones who are lucky enough to find a piece of an expensive meteorite will be provided for life. But these can be counted on one hand in the entire history of mankind.

P.S. Recently, small fragments of a meteorite were found. Hundreds of offers to buy the Chelyabinsk meteorite have already appeared on the Internet, although almost all of them are a scam. According to our scientists working at the site of the explosion, they found more than 50 small fragments of the meteorite. The price of these shards is still unknown, as the price depends on the demand as well. Russian experts estimate the fragments at $ 2,000 per gram. And American experts argue that the price is too high and that the real cost is about $ 100 per gram.
Interestingly, 4 years ago on the same day, a meteorite of the same type exploded over Texas. Pieces of a Texas meteorite cost between $ 20 and $ 100 per gram.

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Recently, more and more people are turning to Ufokom with a request to identify strange finds, in most cases representing amorphous pieces of molten metal, sometimes quite large. Those who provided these iron grains most often creep in the assumption of their cosmic origin. In the press, however, information has been circulated that meteorites are "more valuable than gold", so respectable Belarusians are looking for their kind of treasures and carry all stones unusual to a mere mortal eye in an endless stream.

True, the majority of those handed over to the “meteorite foundations” operating at BelNIGRI, in fact, turns out to be quite terrestrial representatives of various groups of minerals. There is even a special name for them - pseudometeorites. Many write about meteorites, but almost no one talks about them, only with the prefix "pseudo". Meanwhile, every month about 10 new samples are added to the original collection of pseudo meteorites in Belarus, and not a single one has replenished the collection of meteorites for about 20 years! So the situation has developed that the "critical mass" of pseudometeorites has already accumulated, and the population does not know anything about it. To prevent the critical mass from “detonating”, we decided to “neutralize” it by making a kind of virtual tour of the museum, existing on the basis of BelNIGRI, with the help of its head - Vsevolod Evgenievich Bordon.

- Vsevolod Evgenievich, tell us what is generally mistaken for meteorites and how to distinguish a pseudo meteorite from a real one without laboratory analysis?

About 2 thousand tons of meteorites fall out in the world per day. Some of them, some of them fall into the collection, some disappear (most), and the population brings us mainly different alloys and rocks to determine the "meteorite". In order to determine whether it is a meteorite or not a meteorite, special studies are needed. Sometimes a visual inspection of the sample is sufficient, but more often special analyzes are required. A meteorite usually looks like a charred rock, with a black film or melting crust on top of it as it flew through the atmosphere. If the meteorite fell a long time ago, then as a result of oxidation and weathering, the melting crust takes on a red-brown color. And they usually bring us various boulders, pieces of rock, foundry waste, swamp ore, or any other ore that comes across. Most often, they bring ordinary pieces of stones ... When you wash it, you can see that it is a boulder or a piece of granite that has been rolled in.

In second place are various waste foundry. It is usually a silicate iron that looks pretty impressive as it appears initially. When waste is taken to be smelted, it is often lost along the way. It can be found in the most unusual place: in the forest, near the road, even in the garden ...

Silicate iron or foundry waste. Silicates contain silicon, as well as ferrous and ferric iron. Photo: Evgeny Shaposhnikov (Ufokom).

One of the samples transferred to Ufok now takes its place in the BelNIGRI museum and is a piece of "foam" left over from the melting of iron. Photo: Evgeny Shaposhnikov (Ufokom).

- And the waste left over from the activities of people in the Bronze and Iron Age? They melted something.

Yes, maybe, but we have not yet received such exhibits in the museum. After all, the formula is not difficult to establish, Fe and Si are almost always present there in certain proportions.

- And in third place?

In third place are fragments of shells, various bombs that remained from two world wars. They are very similar - the metal, melted, moreover, lay in the ground ... They are very similar, some I could not even visually identify - maybe it is still a meteorite. But we gave them for special analyzes, even in the laboratory of the Tractor or Motor Plant, where the appropriate equipment is available. Most of them define: it is Krupp steel (a type of steel armor) of a certain year.

Sometimes you come across such fragments of ancient shells that they were already so much in the ground that they look like a meteorite, this is even the remnants of the First World War. But they also cannot have a melting crust. Such patterns are very difficult to identify yourself.

A man from Gomel arrived yesterday. He brought two samples. We did X-rays, spectral analysis, it turned out - not a meteorite. The Gomel resident wanted to collect the sample. I am on fire for him, because you have to pay. He's not in any. And the analysis now costs about 100 thousand Belarusian rubles, so before carrying your "meteorite", stock up on this amount. Otherwise, in the future, analyzes will become impossible at all!

- Are there mistakes?

There are. Here is an interesting sample that stood in the museum for a long time before me and was signed as a fragment of the Braga meteorite. I began to doubt, because there is no melting core, and sent it for analysis. As a result, it turned out that this is amphibolite - a rock, which consists of hornblende and plagioclase - and he had to replenish another collection - this time pseudometeorites.

Help "UK". The most "long-lying" Belarusian pseudo-meteorite is Ruzhansky, which we have already written about on our website. Its fragment was kept in the Slonim Museum of Local Lore for 20 years. After the war, SI Ryng from the Committee on Meteorites of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR established that the sample kept in the museum is a boulder of sedimentary rock.

Meteorite tests at home

Appearance

There are three classes of meteorites: stone, iron (monolithic pieces of iron-nickel alloy) and iron-stone (metal sponge filled with silicate substance). Meteorites are generally heavier than common minerals found. Meteorites never melt through like slag and do not have bubbles, voids, cavities inside. On the surface of meteorites, regmaglipts are often visible - smooth depressions resembling finger dents on clay, and the meteorite itself can have an aerodynamic shape.

Reflow crust can be seen on the surface of freshly fallen meteorites (recently fallen). The body of the sample lacks layering, which is often observed in shale sandstones and jasper rocks. There are no carbonate rocks like chalk, limestone, dolomite. Fossils are not found: shells, imprints of fossil fauna, etc. Meteorites do not have a large crystalline structure like granite.

Scratch test

Iron ore is most often misleading search engines. Magnetite (magnetic iron ore, FeO Fe 2 O 3) has pronounced magnetic properties (hence its name). Hematite (iron mineral Fe 2 O 3) has similar, but somewhat less pronounced properties.

How to quickly and reliably determine what is in your hands: magnetite or hematite? There is a simple one for this, but effective method... The researchers called this test the "Scratch Test". To do this, it is enough to vigorously scratch with your sample on ... the unglazed surface of the ceramic (white) tile! If there is no tile at hand, then the unglazed surface of the sink will do. You can also use the bottom of a ceramic coffee cup or inner part toilet cistern cover! The idea is clear - you need a white ceramic rough surface.

If the sample leaves a black or gray streak (like a soft lead pencil), then your sample is most likely magnetite; if the strip is bright red or brown, then you probably have hematite in your hands! A stone meteorite, if it survived the conditions of the fall and temperature exposure, will not leave marks on the surface of the tile. However, it must be remembered that the scratch test, like all tests mentioned here, are only estimates (conditions necessary but not sufficient) and do not provide a definitive conclusion about the nature of your sample.

Hot stone effect

Some people know the so-called "hot stones". They are in 25% of cases and turn out to be stone meteorites. The metal detector reacts to them as if with a slight delay, after passing over them. Iron and iron stone meteorites are distinguished by a very clear response from the device.

Thin section

This test will partially destroy your sample! If your sample has passed the previous tests, then the moment of truth is close - you need to make a small section (a kind of "window") on your sample in order to look inside the sample.

The challenge is to explore the internal structure. To do this, you need to make a saw cut on either side of the sample and, if possible, polish it. Carefully examine the opened surface of the thin section from different angles. If you see shiny flakes of metal scattered over the surface on a thin section, then your sample has increased the chances of becoming a meteorite. If the surface is simple, fine-grained or coarse-grained, and has no traces of metal flakes, then the chances that you have a meteorite plummet.

Nickel test

All iron meteorites contain nickel, that is, we are dealing with an iron-nickel alloy. Thus, analyzing a sample for nickel often provides a definitive answer as to the nature of your sample. If you've come this far, you're very persistent. To determine the nickel content in a sample, use chemical test using dimethylglyoxime. You can get it in the chemical laboratory.

If you drop this organic compound(C 4 H 8 N 2 O 2) on the surface of the sample, then a bright red precipitate forms on the surface - the result of the interaction of dimethylglyoxime with nickel ions. Exercise caution when performing this test.

There is also such an option: dissolve the drug in industrial alcohol. In one liter of alcohol, after vigorous shaking, about a tablespoon of dimethylglyoxime will dissolve, and a small amount of undissolved substance will settle to the bottom. Next, you need to take a regular sheet of paper and cut into strips 5 mm wide, like litmus paper in a dough, soak in the resulting solution and dry. Put a few drops of ammonia (or ordinary vinegar) on the sample, wait a couple of minutes and blot with a test strip. If the strip turns light pink, then in front of you, most likely, a meteorite; if it remains white, the stone can be thrown away or scrapped.

The first lines of the historical novel by the Belarusian-Polish writer Genrikh Sienkiewicz "With Fire and Sword" describe the solar eclipse of 1647 and the appearance of a comet burning like a star in the sky, which, according to ancient beliefs, brings wars, catastrophes and epidemics. The appearance of the star wanderer was recorded in the historical chronicles, as well as in the annals. Some researchers suggest that this comet, most likely, was the Bragin meteorite, which, having exploded, brought down a stellar rain, consisting of iron fragments of various sizes, and covered a significant area that looked like an elongated ellipse 15 kilometers long.

The Bragin meteorite, which belongs to a rare type of meteorite called pallasite, was found by chance in 1807 by peasants of the Bragin region in Belarus in a swampy area. But even now, in the territory of the Bragin region, fragments are still found when digging pits or digging wells. The largest fragment is the found fragment weighing two hundred and seventy kilograms.

Since they have the same structure and composition, this suggests that a strong meteorite rain fell here many years ago from pallasites. The meteorite, before reaching the ground, disintegrated into small pieces in the atmosphere. The entire area where the meteorites were found stretched for about 15 km.

The first fragments of a meteorite found at the beginning of the nineteenth century were taken to Moscow as ordinary scrap iron. There, the merchant Sitnikov drew attention to them and immediately appreciated the non-standardness of the find. He bought the goods at the bargain price of raw iron and very successfully resold in England at a much higher value, already like a meteorite.

Slice of the Bragin meteorite

In 1882, in the United States, in Kansas, the Branham meteorite was found. The story of his discovery was not entirely common.

Farmer Kimberly collected about a ton of stones on the site of his estate at the insistence of his wife Eliza, who claimed that they were meteorites. But it wasn't until 1890 that a geology professor at the University of Wisconsin confirmed that these stones were indeed meteorites and acquired several samples.

Famous meteorite hunters found many fragments of the Branham meteorite in these parts in 1930, and the amateur geologist Stockwell from Hutchinson in 1947 was lucky to find a stone weighing 453 kilograms

In 2005, Steve Arnold, an English actor, followed the sound of his metal sensor and headed towards a 650 kg meteorite fragment. This meteorite, home to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, fell on our planet more than a thousand years ago. After Steve began digging with a shovel in the area from where the stronger signals were coming from, he was forced to use the excavator in order to finally dig up a huge rock.

It was not just a large iron stone, this meteorite had beautiful green crystals. Thus, Steve Arnold managed to find the largest meteorite of this type on our planet. Everyone who is lucky enough to see this meteorite repeats that it is simply impossible to describe it in words. This extraterrestrial rock is a must see. A meteorite is a real work of art, only the creator of this work was not man, but Nature itself.

The extremely rare stone, which has been featured in museums in Kansas and Texas, as well as at the Tucson Gems and Minerals Show in Arizona, was recently put up for sale.

Steve Arnold planned to receive at least one million dollars for this unusual stone. Potential clients who may respond to an offer to buy this rarity include museums, various corporations, as well as fairly large sellers of meteorites.
And the meteorite field where Steve Arnold found his rock has been used as a filming location for several television documentaries.

In 1902, a palassite meteorite known as Marjalahti fell in Karelia. When it fell, it hit a rock ledge, split into pieces and sank in Lake Maryalakhti - the bay of Lake Ladoga. Local residents witnessed this fall. In June 1902, after a long search, one of the meteorite fragments weighing 45 kg was recovered from the lake. Now it is in the Geological Museum of the University of Helsinki, as this area at that time belonged to Finland.

After the meteorite was examined, the precious olivine crystals in it were identified of such a high quality that they were accepted as the official standard.

Already in our days several teams of "hunters" went in search of an expensive meteorite. “But there was a war in this place, and there is a huge amount of iron in the lake. And our devices are just buggy, ”say the“ meteorite hunters ”. According to them, only one diver found the fragment.

EKATERINBURG, September 29 - RIA Novosti. A resident of Chelyabinsk put up for sale a fragment of a meteorite weighing about 3.4 kilograms - the largest of the fragments of this celestial body found, the authenticity of which has been confirmed by scientists to date.

Earlier it was reported that the specialists of the Chelyabinsk state university(ChelSU) confirmed the authenticity of a 3.4 kilogram fragment of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which was found by a resident of the region near the village of Timiryazevsky. The owner of the object was issued a corresponding certificate. At the same time, the fragment lightened up to 3.36 kilograms, since a piece was cut off for research.

"Selling meteorite" Chelyabinsk "with a certificate. This fragment is officially recognized as the largest ever found," - such a message can be found on one of the popular ad sites. The price is 2.112 million rubles. As told RIA Novosti the author - Chelyabinsk resident Alexei Usenkov, he determined it without the involvement of experts: "the price is taken from the lowest possible price for this meteorite and the highest possible."

"I think that this stone can become one of the symbols of some new shopping and entertainment center in the city of Chelyabinsk," the agency's interlocutor said, noting that he did not intend to reduce the price and expects to sell the fragment before the anniversary of the meteorite fall - February 15.

“I used to say that I do not plan to sell it yet, but it was not clear with Lake Chebarkul what would be there. And when it became known that sooner or later mine would not be the biggest, I decided to sell it. if mine were the biggest, then he would have a place in the museum, "explained Usenkov.

Now experts are working on the search and recovery from Lake Chebarkul of the alleged fragment of a meteorite weighing several hundred kilograms. According to the Minister of Radiation and Environmental Safety of the region, Alexander Galichin, it should be raised by October 4. During the operation, the divers took out several stones, which may be fragments of a celestial body, one of which weighs 4.8 kilograms.

How a meteorite fell in the Urals

The meteorite, later named Chelyabinsk, fell on 15 February. The fall of the space object was reported not only by residents Chelyabinsk region, but also Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Kostanay (the administrative center of the Kostanay region in the north of Kazakhstan) and the Kurgan region. The blast wave knocked out windows in more than 7 thousand buildings, of which more than 6 thousand are residential buildings. According to the Ministry of Regional Development, more than 1.6 thousand people have applied for medical help, mainly from broken glass. Scientists have established that the asteroid that fell in the Chelyabinsk region may have experienced collisions with other cosmic bodies or flew very close to the Sun. What are the meteorites

Chemical analysis of the fragments of a celestial body showed that this is an ordinary chondrite of the LL5 type - one of the types of stony meteorites. It is believed that the largest fragment of the meteorite fell into Lake Chebarkul. UrFU scientists suggested that several large fragments may lie at the bottom of the reservoir.

How Russians tried to turn a meteor shower into gold

The Chelyabinsk region, barely recovering from the meteor shower, was seized by a new misfortune: local residents rushed to look for fragments of the meteorite, hoping then to sell them to collectors at online auctions. The idea of ​​the Chelyabinsk people was hastened to ride on enterprising people from other countries. Scientists warn that it is quite difficult to distinguish a real meteorite from debris. The police launched a hunt for the sellers of space stones.

Our planet is surrounded by a huge number of various celestial bodies. Small ones, when falling to the Earth, go unnoticed, and 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 falls on 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 hit the Earth

On April 22, 2012, a celestial body appeared near the surface of the Earth, moving at a tremendous speed. Flying over the American 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 passed since February 2012, when hundreds of meteorite stones fell on an area of ​​100 km in China. The event, out of the ordinary, is still remembered by eyewitnesses. 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.

A crater with a depth of 6 m and a diameter of 30 m was formed at the site of the fall, from where a fountain escaped hot water... The consequences of a meteorite fall are still felt by local residents.

Most likely, the composition of the celestial body included poisonous substances, 1500 people living in the area closest to the place of the fall suffer from severe headaches.

Near the Turkmen city of Kunya-Urgench in the summer of 1998, a meteorite fell, which received the name of the city. The fall of the celestial body was accompanied by a bright light. In the place of the fall of the largest (weighing 820 kg) meteorite fragment, a five-meter funnel was formed. Fortunately, none of the local residents were hurt, the meteorite fell on a cotton field.

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

Sterlitamak meteorite, 1990

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

In March 1976, the largest rain of stone meteorites in history occurred in the Chinese province of Jilin. The falling of cosmic bodies to the Earth lasted 37 minutes, the falling speed reached 12 kilometers per second. About a hundred meteorites were found, the largest of them was named Jilin (Jilin), its weight is 1.7 tons.

In the winter of 1947, a meteorite fell in the form of an iron rain in the Far Eastern Ussuri taiga in the Sikhote-Alin mountains. After being shattered in the atmosphere as a result of the explosion, the meteorite turned into many fragments that fell over an area of ​​10 square kilometers. In the 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 at vast territory.

The largest of today known to science meteorite 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 about 80,000 years, in 1920 a meteorite was found in Namibia.

The Goba meteorite is the heaviest of all cosmic bodies that have ever hit the surface of our planet. It is mainly composed of iron. Today it is the largest piece of naturally occurring iron on Earth. It still lies in Namibia, in the southwest of Africa. Since its discovery, the meteorite has lost almost 6 tons in weight as a result of scientific research, erosion and the invasion of vandals. Today 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. Above an uninhabited taiga area, the object exploded at an altitude of 7-10 km. The blast wave circled the globe twice and was of such power 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 a speed of tens of kilometers per second.

The blast wave on the territory of more than 200 square kilometers was felled by trees, windows were knocked out 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 the vast territory for several more days.

The answer to the question: what was it? - still no. If the fireball was a meteorite, then a giant crater with a depth of at least 500 m should have appeared at the site of the fall. But for all subsequent years it was never found. The Tunguska meteorite remains a 20th century mystery. The celestial body exploded in the air, the consequences of this were colossal, and no remnants or debris on Earth was ever found.

Meteor shower, USA, 1833

On an autumn night in November 1833, a meteor shower fell over the United States. For 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 known meteor showers, which is called the Leonids.

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

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