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When a meteorite falls on us. What is the largest meteorite that fell to earth? What is the danger of a large meteorite falling to Earth?

Every day, up to 6 tons of meteorites fall to the Earth: some of them cause serious damage, others scatter in the atmosphere. The meteorite catalog contains about 23 thousand objects. We will highlight the most curious space aliens.

Officially, the oldest meteorite to reach the surface of the Earth is considered to be a space object discovered on Mount Huashitai near the Chinese city of Xi'an. According to scientists, it fell to Earth about 2 billion years ago. It is interesting that the inhabitants of these places have revered Mount Huashitai as sacred since ancient times.

This meteorite can also be called the largest. Chinese scientists estimated the dimensions of the celestial giant - 160x50x60 meters, with a weight of almost 200 tons. To get to the core of the meteorite, scientists had to drill a hole 50 meters long.

Today, China's first meteorite park has opened at the crash site, where visitors can increase their knowledge of unusual celestial aliens.

The most “iron”

In 1920, in what is now Namibia, farmer Jacob Hermanus, plowing the ground, came across a huge block of stone - he did not know that he had discovered a meteorite. The heavenly guest was named after the nearby Hoba West Farm. The meteorite mainly consists of iron, due to which, despite its rather modest size - a diameter of 2.5 meters and a volume of 9 cubic meters. meters - its weight reaches 6 tons.

According to scientists, the meteorite fell about 80 thousand years ago. It is curious that it left a crater that was too small for its size, but most likely, according to scientists, the object had a small angle of incidence, and before colliding with the surface of the Earth, it greatly slowed down its speed. The possibility of such a fall is confirmed by the shape celestial body– it is flat on both sides.

Since the meteorite became a tourist attraction, according to experts, it has lost at least 6 tons - the result of vandals who are all trying to break off a piece for themselves as a souvenir. To somehow prevent the theft of the meteorite for souvenirs local authorities it was declared a national monument in 1955.

The most mysterious

The disaster that occurred on June 30, 1908 in the sky over Siberia in the Podkamennaya Tunguska region is associated with the fall of a meteorite. The explosion, which occurred at an altitude of approximately 5-10 kilometers, was so powerful that it was recorded by observatories around the world. According to scientists, the power of the explosion was 40-50 kilotons - this corresponds to the power of a hydrogen bomb.

The blast wave felled a forest within a radius of 40 kilometers, and streams of flammable gases provoked a severe fire. Due to the clouds formed after the passage of the celestial body on the line from the Southern Yenisei to the French city of Bordeaux, the effect of “bright nights” could be observed for several days. This phenomenon became possible due to the intense reflection of solar rays by clouds.

The site of the Tunguska meteorite disaster was visited by several research expeditions, but no fragments were discovered that clearly belonged to the celestial body, with the exception of microscopic silicate and magnetite balls, which are attributed to extraterrestrial origin. A number of other finds at the site of the disaster - conical holes in the ground and quartz cobblestones with mysterious signs - have so far baffled scientists.

Largest meteor shower

In March 1976, residents of the Chinese province of Jilin were literally hit by “stone rain” that lasted more than half an hour. However, despite the intensity of the meteorite bombardment, there was no information about the damage caused.

Scientists have found that the speed of the meteorite shower was approximately 12 km/sec, and the weight of its fragments reached 12.5 kg. Later, the largest of the objects was discovered - a 1.7-ton meteorite named Girin.

As a rule, meteorite showers are possible when a larger meteorite is destroyed due to severe overheating in the upper atmosphere. This is evidenced by the testimony of eyewitnesses who reported a strong cannonade of explosions before the fall of the stones.

The most unusual

In 1980, a seemingly unremarkable fist-sized meteorite fell onto the territory of a Soviet military base near the town of Qaidun in Yemen, if not for one circumstance: it was not like any of the meteorites found so far. According to an employee of the Institute of Geochemistry named after. Vernadsky Andrei Ivanov, this two-kilogram meteorite most likely flew to us from Phobos, the satellite of Mars.

Studies using an electron microscope have shown that the body of the space guest consists of substances completely different both in origin and in chemical properties, it also contained fragments of volcanic rocks and high carbon content.

American scientist Michael Zolensky suggests that carbonaceous substances are a consequence of Phobos’s “asteroid past,” and volcanic fragments fell onto the meteorite from Mars.

The most "alive"

The meteorite that fell in 1969 near the Australian town of Murchison does not have any special dimensions - 108 kilograms, but it is known for having more than 14 thousand organic compounds, including about 70 amino acids. True, real debate arose about the latter, since some scientists believed that some amino acids entered the celestial body from earthly soil.

The debate continued for 27 years until American scientists conducted a decisive experiment, during which they proved that the ratio of organic substances in the meteorite “differs from that characteristic of all terrestrial objects.” The Murchison meteorite is of interest primarily to those who believe that life on Earth occurred due to the introduction of organic compounds from space.

The largest accumulation of meteorites

The ice shell of Antarctica is an ideal place for discovering the remains of celestial bodies, since its white surface does not allow anything to escape the gaze of researchers. Scientists have calculated that approximately 700 thousand meteorites are scattered on the surface of the continent - real “deposits” of stellar matter can be found here. In places with the greatest concentration of space objects, according to scientists, “meteorites are literally lying under your feet.”

The previous post assessed the danger of an asteroid threat from space. And here we will consider what will happen if (when) a meteorite of one or another size does fall to Earth.

The scenario and consequences of such an event as the fall of a cosmic body to Earth, of course, depends on many factors. Let's list the main ones:

Size of cosmic body

This factor, naturally, is of primary importance. Armageddon on our planet can be caused by a meteorite 20 kilometers in size, so in this post we will consider scenarios for the fall of cosmic bodies on the planet ranging in size from a speck of dust to 15-20 km. There is no point in doing more, since in this case the scenario will be simple and obvious.

Compound

Small bodies of the Solar System can have different compositions and densities. Therefore, there is a difference whether a stone or iron meteorite falls to Earth, or a loose comet core consisting of ice and snow. Accordingly, in order to cause the same destruction, the comet nucleus must be two to three times larger than an asteroid fragment (at the same falling speed).

For reference: more than 90 percent of all meteorites are stone.

Speed

Also a very important factor when bodies collide. After all, here the transition of kinetic energy of motion into heat occurs. And the speed at which cosmic bodies enter the atmosphere can vary significantly (from approximately 12 km/s to 73 km/s, for comets - even more).

The slowest meteorites are those that catch up with the Earth or are overtaken by it. Accordingly, those flying towards us will add their speed to the orbital speed of the Earth, pass through the atmosphere much faster, and the explosion from their impact on the surface will be many times more powerful.

Where will it fall

At sea or on land. It is difficult to say in which case the destruction will be greater, it will just be different.

A meteorite may fall on a nuclear weapons storage site or a nuclear power plant, causing harm to environment may be more from radioactive contamination than from a meteorite impact (if it was relatively small).

Angle of incidence

Doesn't play a big role. At those enormous speeds at which a cosmic body crashes into a planet, it does not matter at what angle it will fall, since in any case the kinetic energy of movement will turn into thermal energy and be released in the form of an explosion. This energy does not depend on the angle of incidence, but only on mass and speed. Therefore, by the way, all craters (on the Moon, for example) have a circular shape, and there are no craters in the form of trenches drilled at an acute angle.

How do bodies of different diameters behave when falling to Earth?

Up to several centimeters

They completely burn up in the atmosphere, leaving a bright trail several tens of kilometers long (a well-known phenomenon called meteor). The largest of them reach altitudes of 40-60 km, but most of these “specks of dust” burn up at altitudes of more than 80 km.

Mass phenomenon - within just 1 hour, millions (!!) of meteors flash in the atmosphere. But, taking into account the brightness of the flashes and the observer’s viewing radius, at night in one hour you can see from several to dozens of meteors (during meteor showers - more than a hundred). Over the course of a day, the mass of dust from meteors deposited on the surface of our planet is calculated in hundreds and even thousands of tons.

From centimeters to several meters

Fireballs- the brightest meteors, the brightness of which exceeds the brightness of the planet Venus. The flash may be accompanied by noise effects, including the sound of an explosion. After this, a trail of smoke remains in the sky.

Fragments of cosmic bodies of this size reach the surface of our planet. It happens like this:

At the same time, stone meteoroids, and especially ice ones, are usually crushed into fragments due to explosion and heating. Metal ones can withstand pressure and fall onto the surface entirely:

Iron meteorite "Goba" measuring about 3 meters, which fell "entirely" 80 thousand years ago on the territory of modern Namibia (Africa)

If the speed of entry into the atmosphere was very high (oncoming trajectory), then such meteoroids have much less chance of reaching the surface, since the force of their friction with the atmosphere will be much greater. The number of fragments into which a meteoroid is fragmented can reach hundreds of thousands; the process of their fall is called meteor Rain.

Over the course of a day, several dozen small (about 100 grams) fragments of meteorites can fall to Earth in the form of cosmic fallout. Considering that most of them fall into the ocean, and in general, they are difficult to distinguish from ordinary stones, they are found quite rarely.

The number of times a meter-sized cosmic bodies enter our atmosphere is several times a year. If you are lucky and the fall of such a body is noticed, there is a chance to find decent fragments weighing hundreds of grams, or even kilograms.

17 meters - Chelyabinsk bolide

Supercar- this is how particularly powerful meteoroid explosions are sometimes called, like that, which exploded in February 2013 over Chelyabinsk. The initial size of the body that then entered the atmosphere according to various expert assessments varies, with an average estimate of 17 meters. Weight - about 10,000 tons.

The object entered the Earth's atmosphere at a very acute angle (15-20°) at a speed of about 20 km/sec. It exploded half a minute later at an altitude of about 20 km. The power of the explosion was several hundred kilotons of TNT. This is 20 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, but here the consequences were not so fatal because the explosion occurred at a high altitude and the energy was dispersed over a large area, largely away from populated areas.

Less than a tenth of the meteoroid's original mass reached Earth, that is, about a ton or less. The fragments were scattered over an area more than 100 km long and about 20 km wide. Many small fragments were found, several weighing kilograms, the largest piece weighing 650 kg was recovered from the bottom of Lake Chebarkul:

Damage: Almost 5,000 buildings were damaged (mostly broken glass and frames), and about 1.5 thousand people were injured by glass fragments.

A body of this size could easily reach the surface without breaking into fragments. This did not happen due to the too acute angle of entry, because before exploding, the meteoroid flew several hundred kilometers in the atmosphere. If the Chelyabinsk meteoroid had fallen vertically, then instead of an air shock wave breaking the glass, there would have been a powerful impact on the surface, resulting in a seismic shock, with the formation of a crater with a diameter of 200-300 meters. In this case, judge for yourself about the damage and number of victims; everything would depend on the location of the fall.

Concerning repetition rates similar events, then after the Tunguska meteorite of 1908, this is the largest celestial body to fall to Earth. That is, in one century we can expect one or several such guests from outer space.

Tens of meters - small asteroids

The children's toys are over, let's move on to more serious things.

If you read the previous post, then you know that small bodies of the solar system up to 30 meters in size are called meteoroids, more than 30 meters - asteroids.

If an asteroid, even the smallest one, meets the Earth, then it will definitely not fall apart in the atmosphere and its speed will not slow down to the speed of free fall, as happens with meteoroids. All the enormous energy of its movement will be released in the form of an explosion - that is, it will turn into thermal energy, which will melt the asteroid itself, and mechanical, which will create a crater, scatter earthly rock and fragments of the asteroid itself, and also create a seismic wave.

To quantify the scale of such a phenomenon, we can consider, for example, the asteroid crater in Arizona:

This crater was formed 50 thousand years ago by the impact of an iron asteroid with a diameter of 50-60 meters. The force of the explosion was 8000 Hiroshima, the diameter of the crater was 1.2 km, the depth was 200 meters, the edges rose 40 meters above the surrounding surface.

Another event of comparable scale is the Tunguska meteorite. The power of the explosion was 3000 Hiroshima, but here there was a fall of a small comet nucleus with a diameter of tens to hundreds of meters, according to various estimates. Comet nuclei are often compared to dirty snowflakes, so in this case no crater appeared, the comet exploded in the air and evaporated, felling a forest over an area of 2 thousand square kilometers. If the same comet exploded over the center of modern Moscow, it would destroy all the houses right up to the ring road.

Drop Frequency asteroids tens of meters in size - once every few centuries, hundred-meter ones - once every several thousand years.

300 meters - asteroid Apophis (the most dangerous known at the moment)

Although, according to the latest NASA data, the probability of the Apophis asteroid hitting the Earth during its flight near our planet in 2029 and then in 2036 is practically zero, we will still consider the scenario of the consequences of its possible fall, since there are many asteroids that have not yet been discovered, and such an event can still happen, if not this time, then another time.

So... the asteroid Apophis, contrary to all forecasts, falls to Earth...

The power of the explosion is 15,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. When it hits the mainland, an impact crater with a diameter of 4-5 km and a depth of 400-500 meters appears, the shock wave demolishes all brick buildings in an area with a radius of 50 km, less durable buildings, as well as trees falling at a distance of 100-150 kilometers from the place falls. A column of dust, similar to a mushroom from a nuclear explosion several kilometers high, rises into the sky, then the dust begins to spread in different directions, and within a few days it spreads evenly across the entire planet.

But, despite the greatly exaggerated horror stories that the media usually scare people with, nuclear winter and the end of the world will not come - the caliber of Apophis is not enough for this. According to the experience of powerful volcanic eruptions that took place in the not very long history, during which huge emissions of dust and ash also occur into the atmosphere, with such an explosion power the effect of “nuclear winter” will be small - a drop in the average temperature on the planet by 1-2 degrees, after Six months or a year everything returns to its place.

That is, this is a catastrophe not on a global, but on a regional scale - if Apophis gets into a small country, he will destroy it completely.

If Apophis hits the ocean, coastal areas will be affected by the tsunami. The height of the tsunami will depend on the distance to the place of impact - the initial wave will have a height of about 500 meters, but if Apophis falls into the center of the ocean, then 10-20 meter waves will reach the shores, which is also quite a lot, and the storm will last with such mega-waves. there will be waves for several hours. If the impact in the ocean occurs not far from the coast, then surfers in coastal (and not only) cities will be able to ride such a wave: (sorry for the dark humor)

Recurrence frequency events of similar magnitude in the history of the Earth are measured in tens of thousands of years.

Let's move on to global disasters...

1 kilometer

The scenario is the same as during the fall of Apophis, only the scale of the consequences is many times more serious and already reaches a low-threshold global catastrophe (the consequences are felt by all of humanity, but there is no threat of the death of civilization):

The power of the explosion in Hiroshima: 50,000, the size of the resulting crater when falling onto land: 15-20 km. Radius of the destruction zone from blast and seismic waves: up to 1000 km.

When falling into the ocean, again, everything depends on the distance to the shore, since the resulting waves will be very high (1-2 km), but not long, and such waves die out quite quickly. But in any case, the area of flooded territories will be huge - millions of square kilometers.

The decrease in atmospheric transparency in this case from emissions of dust and ash (or water vapor falling into the ocean) will be noticeable for several years. If you enter a seismically dangerous zone, the consequences may be aggravated by earthquakes provoked by an explosion.

However, an asteroid of such diameter will not be able to tilt the Earth’s axis noticeably or affect the rotation period of our planet.

Despite the not-so-dramatic nature of this scenario, this is a fairly ordinary event for the Earth, since it has already happened thousands of times throughout its existence. Average repetition frequency- once every 200-300 thousand years.

An asteroid with a diameter of 10 kilometers is a global catastrophe on a planetary scale

Hiroshima explosion power: 50 million
The size of the resulting crater when it falls on land: 70-100 km, depth - 5-6 km.
The depth of cracking of the earth's crust will be tens of kilometers, that is, right up to the mantle (the thickness of the earth's crust under the plains is on average 35 km). Magma will begin to emerge to the surface.
The area of the destruction zone can be several percent of the Earth's area.
During the explosion, a cloud of dust and molten rock will rise to a height of tens of kilometers, possibly up to hundreds. The volume of ejected materials is several thousand cubic kilometers - this is enough for a light “asteroid autumn”, but not enough for an “asteroid winter” and the beginning of an ice age.
Secondary craters and tsunamis from fragments and large pieces of ejected rock.
A small, but by geological standards, decent tilt of the earth’s axis from the impact - up to 1/10 of a degree.
When it hits the ocean, it results in a tsunami with kilometer-long (!!) waves that go far into the continents.
In the event of intense eruptions of volcanic gases, acid rain is subsequently possible.

But this is not quite Armageddon yet! Our planet has already experienced even such enormous catastrophes dozens or even hundreds of times. On average this happens once once every 100 million years. If this happened at the present time, the number of victims would be unprecedented, in the worst case it could be measured in billions of people, and besides, it is unknown what kind of social upheaval this would lead to. However, despite the period of acid rain and several years of some cooling due to a decrease in the transparency of the atmosphere, in 10 years the climate and biosphere would have been completely restored.

Armageddon

For such a significant event in human history, an asteroid the size of 15-20 kilometers in quantity 1 piece.

Another one will come glacial period, most living organisms will die, but life on the planet will remain, although it will no longer be the same as before. As always, the strongest will survive...

Such events also happened repeatedly in the world. Since the emergence of life on it, Armageddons have happened at least several, and perhaps dozens of times. It is believed that the last time this happened was 65 million years ago ( Chicxulub meteorite), when dinosaurs and almost all other species of living organisms died, only 5% of the chosen ones remained, including our ancestors.

Full Armageddon

If a cosmic body the size of the state of Texas crashes into our planet, as it happened in the famous film with Bruce Willis, then even bacteria will not survive (although, who knows?), Life will have to arise and evolve anew.

Conclusion

I wanted to write a review post about meteorites, but it turned out to be an Armageddon scenario. Therefore, I want to say that all the events described, starting from Apophis (inclusive), are considered theoretically possible, since they will definitely not happen in the next hundred years at least. Why this is so is described in detail in the previous post.

I would also like to add that all the figures given here regarding the correspondence between the size of the meteorite and the consequences of its fall to Earth are very approximate. Data in different sources differ, plus the initial factors during the fall of an asteroid of the same diameter can vary greatly. For example, it is written everywhere that the size of the Chicxulub meteorite is 10 km, but in one, as it seemed to me, authoritative source, I read that a 10-kilometer stone could not have caused such troubles, so for me the Chicxulub meteorite entered the 15-20 kilometer category .

So, if suddenly Apophis still falls in the 29th or 36th year, and the radius of the affected area will be very different from what is written here - write, I’ll correct it

The previous post assessed the danger of an asteroid threat from space. And here we will consider what will happen if (when) a meteorite of one or another size does fall to Earth.

The scenario and consequences of such an event as the fall of a cosmic body to Earth, of course, depends on many factors. Let's list the main ones:

Size of cosmic body

Compound

For reference: more than 90 percent of all meteorites are stone.

Speed

Where will it fall

At sea or on land. It is difficult to say in which case the destruction will be greater, it will just be different.

A meteorite may fall on a nuclear weapons storage site or a nuclear power plant, then the environmental damage may be greater from radioactive contamination than from the meteorite impact (if it was relatively small).

Angle of incidence

How do bodies of different diameters behave when falling to Earth?

Up to several centimeters

From centimeters to several meters

Fragments of cosmic bodies of this size reach the surface of our planet. It happens like this:

At the same time, stone meteoroids, and especially ice ones, are usually crushed into fragments due to explosion and heating. Metal ones can withstand pressure and fall onto the surface entirely:

Iron meteorite "Goba" measuring about 3 meters, which fell "entirely" 80 thousand years ago on the territory of modern Namibia (Africa)

17 meters - Chelyabinsk bolide

Supercar- this is what is sometimes called especially powerful meteoroid explosions, like the one that exploded in February 2013 over Chelyabinsk. The initial size of the body that then entered the atmosphere varies according to various expert estimates, on average it is estimated at 17 meters. Weight - about 10,000 tons.

Damage: Almost 5,000 buildings were damaged (mostly broken glass and frames), and about 1.5 thousand people were injured by glass fragments.

Tens of meters - small asteroids

The children's toys are over, let's move on to more serious things.

If you read the previous post, then you know that small bodies of the solar system up to 30 meters in size are called meteoroids, more than 30 meters - asteroids.

To quantify the scale of such a phenomenon, we can consider, for example, the asteroid crater in Arizona:

Another event of comparable scale is the Tunguska meteorite. The power of the explosion was 3000 Hiroshima, but here there was a fall of a small comet nucleus with a diameter of tens to hundreds of meters, according to various estimates. Comet nuclei are often compared to dirty snow cakes, so in this case no crater appeared, the comet exploded in the air and evaporated, felling a forest over an area of 2 thousand square kilometers. If the same comet exploded over the center of modern Moscow, it would destroy all the houses right up to the ring road.

Drop Frequency asteroids tens of meters in size - once every few centuries, hundred-meter ones - once every several thousand years.

300 meters - asteroid Apophis (the most dangerous known at the moment)

So... the asteroid Apophis, contrary to all forecasts, falls to Earth...

That is, this is a catastrophe not on a global, but on a regional scale - if Apophis gets into a small country, he will destroy it completely.

Recurrence frequency events of similar magnitude in the history of the Earth are measured in tens of thousands of years.

Let's move on to global disasters...

1 kilometer

The power of the explosion in Hiroshima: 50,000, the size of the resulting crater when falling onto land: 15-20 km. Radius of the destruction zone from blast and seismic waves: up to 1000 km.

However, an asteroid of such diameter will not be able to tilt the Earth’s axis noticeably or affect the rotation period of our planet.

An asteroid with a diameter of 10 kilometers is a global catastrophe on a planetary scale

Hiroshima explosion power: 50 million
The size of the resulting crater when it falls on land: 70-100 km, depth - 5-6 km.
The depth of cracking of the earth's crust will be tens of kilometers, that is, right up to the mantle (the thickness of the earth's crust under the plains is on average 35 km). Magma will begin to emerge to the surface.
The area of the destruction zone can be several percent of the Earth's area.
During the explosion, a cloud of dust and molten rock will rise to a height of tens of kilometers, possibly up to hundreds. The volume of ejected materials is several thousand cubic kilometers - this is enough for a light “asteroid autumn”, but not enough for an “asteroid winter” and the beginning of an ice age.
Secondary craters and tsunamis from fragments and large pieces of ejected rock.
A small, but by geological standards, decent tilt of the earth’s axis from the impact - up to 1/10 of a degree.
When it hits the ocean, it results in a tsunami with kilometer-long (!!) waves that go far into the continents.
In the event of intense eruptions of volcanic gases, acid rain is subsequently possible.

Armageddon

For such a significant event in human history, an asteroid the size of 15-20 kilometers in quantity 1 piece.

The next ice age will come, most of the living organisms will die, but life on the planet will remain, although it will no longer be the same as before. As always, the strongest will survive...

Full Armageddon

Conclusion

So, if suddenly Apophis still falls in the 29th or 36th year, and the radius of the affected area will be very different from what is written here - write, I’ll correct it

According to some scientists, the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk was part of a larger asteroid, which contained a lot of iron. If there had been even more of this iron, then most likely it would not have allowed the asteroid to break up in the upper atmosphere and it would have flown to the Earth, causing more significant destruction.

Iron would cause a fairly large crater to form. It's hard to say for sure now, but its diameter would most likely be at least several tens of meters, says Campbell-Brown.

If the Chelyabinsk meteorite had turned out to be a comet, its speed alone would have caused serious destruction, says Mark Bailey, a comet expert and director of the Arman Observatory in Northern Ireland.

An asteroid enters the atmosphere at a speed of 42,000 to 90,000 km/h, and comets, in turn, can travel at a speed of 251,000 km/h. Energy is a function of the square of the speed, so if you double the speed of an object, you get four times the energy.

You wouldn't want that to happen,” Bailey comments.

Comets, due to their long-period orbit and enormous kinetic energy, have every chance of colliding at very high speeds, regardless of the frictional force that may be encountered upon entering the dense layers of the atmosphere.

From all this it follows that they can cause very serious destruction when colliding with the Earth. Perhaps, in some cases, much more serious than in collisions with larger asteroids.

Asteroid 2012 DA14. Diameter 30 meters

The spacecraft, which flew on February 15 at a distance of 27,500 km from Earth, was almost twice the size of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. If it collided with the Earth, it would have caused an explosion equivalent to a 2.4-megaton bomb. For comparison: atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima during World War II, was equivalent to “only” 17 kilotons. This explosion killed approximately 70,000 people instantly. They literally evaporated.

In addition to the giant shock wave, an asteroid of this size could create a crater the size of a 1,200-meter crater near the city of Flagstaff in Arizona, which was formed by a meteorite impact. In this case, people, even those located at a distance of several kilometers from the center of the explosion, would feel that their clothes began to ignite.

Tunguska meteorite. Diameter from 60 to 100 meters

The Tunguska meteorite, or as some call it the Tunguska comet, still causes controversy among many scientists. The bottom line is that in June 1908, in the area of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, an unknown cosmic body was the result of an explosion that released approximately 10 times more energy than in the case of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. The explosion destroyed 80 million trees located over an area of more than 2,000 square kilometers. Its blast wave, with a yield of 10 to 15 megatons, was about 1,000 higher than that of the Hiroshima bomb. Scientists are still arguing about what size this cosmic body was. And these disputes are further complicated by the fact that the exploding body did not form any crater. The only thing we can say with certainty is that the exploding body caused a huge but fleeting forest fire. On this occasion, the case was dubbed the Tunguska phenomenon and a theory was put forward that it was in fact not an asteroid, but a comet.

The object was so bright and its light so intense that it caused trees to heat up and catch fire. But the blast wave was so powerful that it also extinguished the fire, so the fire did not last long, says Brown.

As you know, most of the Earth's surface is covered with water. Therefore, if a cosmic body of this size fell into the ocean, it would most likely cause a supergiant tsunami. And if such a body fell, for example, on some city, then no one and nothing would survive.

It's not a pleasant feeling when your clothes catch fire. If the object fell on the city, it would cause a colossal number of casualties and massive destruction. Perhaps he would not have destroyed Big city, but with a city like New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina took place, it would have been able to cope in no time.

In addition, comets of this size can serve to initiate processes of change at the global level. Although they will not last long. In the hemisphere where the explosion occurs, due to ice particles formed from a sharp temperature change, the sky will glow brightly for several days.

Asteroid Apophis. Diameter 350 meters

When asteroid Apophis 99942 was first discovered, early studies suggested it had a 2.7 percent chance of impacting Earth in . However, new research on this issue, fortunately, suggests that this will not happen. But if the situation had taken a less optimistic course, then the point of entry of this asteroid into the atmosphere would have passed over the northern part of South America. If this body fell, the number of victims could be up to 10 million, according to one study. An asteroid the size of Apophis would also cause destructive tsunami, which nothing would stop in its path.

When you have a piece in front of you that’s almost half a kilometer in size, it doesn’t really matter where exactly it hits the Earth,” Bailey says sadly.

It will cause such an explosion that it will cause global climate change because water will begin to evaporate into the atmosphere. The explosion will create a crater and raise gigantic masses of dust. Here we are already talking about a global catastrophe.

Asteroid 1950 DA. Diameter from 1.1 to 1.4 kilometers

Asteroid 1950 DA is one of the few large kilometer-long space objects in near-Earth space. Asteroids of this size have enough power to destroy entire nations. A kilometer-long asteroid is capable of creating a tsunami that will cover absolutely all coastal areas of the area. And so much dust will rise into the atmosphere that climate change will begin. Plants will simply stop growing due to lack of sunlight, there will be no harvests, and people will begin to feel hungry.

If we talk about asteroids about 10 kilometers in size, then we are already talking about extinction. For example, the diameter of the asteroid (or) that killed the dinosaurs ranged from 10 to 16 kilometers. In this case, not only your clothes, but the entire planet will catch fire. Long-term changes in climate will occur, many species will begin to die out, including humans.

Fortunately, scientists know about 94 percent of these giant asteroids. And we shouldn’t worry about them, at least for the next 100 years. It’s a different matter if we talk about much smaller space objects. Indeed, due to their small size, it is still difficult for scientists to calculate how many there are, where they are and whether they pose a danger to the Earth.

The same 2012 DA14 was discovered from an observatory located on Earth, but the Chelyabinsk meteorite could not have been detected even if they knew where to look in advance. Only because it was moving towards us from the direction of the Sun. True, new technologies, according to the same scientists, already make it possible to create high-tech infrared telescopes that can be installed in orbit around the Sun and which should help researchers solve such issues.

Asteroids that in the future may approach the Earth at a distance of 7.5 million km are considered potentially dangerous to the Earth. Our planet has collided with these cosmic bodies more than once. Today we will talk about how dangerous it is for an asteroid to fall to Earth and is there a possibility of a large-scale catastrophe in the foreseeable future? First, a little historical background.

An asteroid (from Greek “like a star,” “star”) is also called a minor planet. It is a celestial body whose size exceeds 30 km. Some of them have their own satellites. Many asteroids travel across our solar system. 3.5 million years ago, a huge number of asteroids fell on Earth, which led to global changes.

Traces of an ancient asteroid

In the spring of 2016, geologists in Australia discovered traces of an asteroid impact, the diameter of which was about 30-40 km. That is, it is comparable in size to a small satellite. The fall caused an 11-magnitude earthquake, a tsunami and widespread destruction. It was probably one of the asteroids, as a result of which not only the beginnings of life were formed on earth, but also the entire diversity of the biosphere.

There is also an opinion that the mysterious disappearance of dinosaurs occurred due to the fall of a large asteroid to Earth. Although this is just one of many versions...

This is interesting! The ancient impact was formed as a result of an encounter with a meteorite. Its depth once reached 20 km. The meteorite impact caused a tsunami and climate change similar to a nuclear winter. In addition, the temperature on Earth could drop by 26 degrees for up to 16 years.

Chelyabinsk meteorite

The fall of an asteroid to Earth in February 2013 became one of the most discussed incidents not only in Russia, but throughout the world. The asteroid, whose mass reached 16 tons, partially burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere, but a relatively small part of it fell near Chelyabinsk, fortunately, flying over it.

That year it flew over the Ural city, which served as the basis for its name. The body itself turned out to be quite ordinary and consisted of chondrites, but the time and place of its fall aroused interest. None of the asteroids that fell to Earth caused such damage, since they did not fall so close to a densely populated area. The meteorite's mass was 6 tons. Falling into the lake caused broken glass in 7,000 buildings. 112 people were hospitalized with burns, and several more people turned to doctors for help. In total, the shock wave covered 6.5 thousand square meters.

The enormous damage caused by the asteroid could have been much more significant if the celestial stone had fallen not into the water, but onto land. Fortunately, the fall of the asteroid to the earth did not turn into a large-scale disaster.

What is dangerous about a large meteorite falling to Earth?

According to scientists' calculations, the fall of an asteroid to Earth can lead to enormous damage if a body about 1 km in size falls onto the Earth's land. First of all, a funnel with a diameter of approximately 15 km will form, which will cause dust to enter the atmosphere. And this, in turn, can lead to large-scale fires. Dust, heated by the sun, will reduce ozone levels and accelerate chemical reactions in the stratosphere, will reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet's surface.

Thus, the consequences of an asteroid falling to Earth are very serious. The global temperature of the Earth will drop by 8 0 C, causing an ice age. But to lead to the extinction of humanity, the asteroid would have to be 10 times larger.

Giant danger

Scientists recently found out that centaurs should be included in the list of potential threats to our planet - these are giant asteroids with a diameter of 50 to 100 km. The gravitational field of other planets throws them towards our Earth every 40-100 thousand years. Their number has now increased sharply. Scientists are constantly calculating whether a giant asteroid will fall to Earth in the near future, although calculating the trajectory of the fall of the centaurs is a very difficult task.

In addition, the list of potential threats to the Earth includes:

supervolcanic eruption;
global pandemic;
asteroid impact (0.00013%);
nuclear war;
ecological catastrophy.

Will an asteroid hit Earth in October 2017?

The main question that worries scientists at the moment is the danger posed by an asteroid, the size of which is 2 times larger than the Chelyabinsk meteorite. There is a possibility that an event will occur in October 2017 that will cause a disaster on a much larger scale than the 2013 strike. Astronomer Judith Rees claims that the asteroid's diameter reaches 40 km. It was dubbed object WF9.

A dangerous celestial body was discovered by scientists in Hawaii back in 2012. That year it passed at a very close distance from the Earth, and on October 12, 2017 it will approach the most dangerous distance for our planet. Scientists believe that if an asteroid actually hits Earth, the British will be the first to see it.

At the moment, scientists are actively studying the possibility of a collision. True, the probability of an asteroid falling to Earth is very small and, according to researchers, is 1 in a million. However, it still exists.

Constant danger

It should be noted that certain asteroids constantly fly past the Earth different sizes. They are potentially dangerous, but very rarely actually fall to Earth. So, at the end of 2016, a body flew past the Earth at a distance of 2/3 of the distance from a small truck.

And January 2017 was marked by the passage of a celestial body reaching the size of a 10-story building. It flew within 180 thousand km of us.