Can generally be attributed to one of three types meteorites: iron, iron-stone and stone. Most of the meteorites that come to us are stony, but to detect and distinguish them by appearance much more difficult than iron ones.
In addition, pieces of space debris fall to Earth, and it is also possible to distinguish them from meteorite fragments only during laboratory research.
How to distinguish a fragment of cosmic origin from an ordinary stone?
Anyone can find a meteorite fragment. However, not every stone that you encounter on the road is a cosmic “alien”.
When scientists go “hunting” for meteorites, they equip an expedition and use special instruments that allow them to detect and classify a space object in the field. They use metal detectors because objects of space origin often contain metal. If there is a suspicion of extraterrestrial origin, then an initial analysis of the finds is carried out in the field (tested for electrical conductivity, magnetic properties) and then sent to laboratories to conduct a chemical analysis of the found fragments.
According to specialist of the Vladimir State Planetarium Valentina Glazova, in fact, only a specialist in this field can distinguish a meteorite fragment. However, there are general recommendations that will help you understand whether there is a possibility that you have a meteorite in your hands:
The edges of the meteorite are melted (due to heating after passing through the Earth's atmosphere);
- the meteorite exhibits magnetic properties (if you apply a strong magnet to it, it will become magnetized);
- the meteorite is heavy (a stone of similar size will weigh much less);
- the surface of the iron and iron-stone meteorite is heterogeneous - peculiar “fingerprints” are visible on it, as if left by hands on plasticine;
- meteorites often have a dark “charred” color, but after lying in the soil for a long time, the surface of a meteorite containing iron can oxidize and acquire a “rusty” tint.
When purchasing a meteorite fragment, remember that no expert can say with certainty whether it is genuine or just a piece of iron ore.
Is it possible to sell meteorites?
There is no special legislation regulating interaction with the found meteorite.
Leading researcher at the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry named after. Vernadsky, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Andrei Ivanov noted that in order to legalize a meteorite in Russia, it is necessary to register it in the International Catalog of Meteorites. This procedure in the Russian Federation can be completed exclusively in the laboratory of meteoritics of the Geochemical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
According to the rules of the International Meteorite Nomenclature Committee, you must provide at least 20% of the find to the meteorology laboratory, but you can dispose of the remaining 80% at your discretion.
However, do not forget that it is the property of this state.
What else are they selling?
There are a lot of ordinary stones put up for sale under the guise of meteorites. However, scammers fake not only cosmic bodies, but also completely earthly historical objects. For example, tourists are offered to buy pieces Berlin Wall, fragments of ancient dolmens (ancient stone structures) or stones from Egyptian Pyramids. For tourists, there will always be coins from the time of Caesar, slivers of sarcophagi, and fragments of ancient Greek sculptures.
You shouldn't fall for these tricks. Everything that has antique and historical value, as well as items that are necessary and important for science or are state property cannot be objects of free trade.
IN Lately More and more people are turning to Ufokom with a request to identify strange finds, in most cases representing amorphous pieces of melted metal, sometimes quite large. Those who provided these iron grains most often creep in with the assumption of their cosmic origin. The press has circulated information that meteorites are “more valuable than gold”, so respectable Belarusians are looking for them like treasures and bringing all the stones that are unusual to mere mortal eyes in an endless stream.
True, the majority of those submitted to the “bureau of meteorite finds” operating under BelNIGRI, in fact, turn out to be completely earthly representatives various groups minerals. There is even a special name for them - pseudometeorites. Many people write about meteorites, but almost no one talks about them, only with the prefix “pseudo”. Meanwhile, every month the unique collection of pseudometeorites in Belarus is replenished with about 10 new specimens, and not a single one has been added to the collection of meteorites for about 20 years! So the situation has developed that a “critical mass” of pseudometeorites has already accumulated, and the population knows nothing about it. To prevent the critical mass from “detonating,” we decided to “neutralize” it by making a kind of virtual tour of the museum that exists on the basis of BelNIGRI, with the help of its head, Vsevolod Evgenievich Bordona.
- Vsevolod Evgenievich, tell us what is generally mistaken for meteorites and how to distinguish a pseudometeorite from a real one without laboratory analysis?
About 2 thousand tons of meteorites fall in the world every day. Some of them end up in collections, some disappear ( most of), and the population brings us mainly different alloys and rocks for determination of “meteoriticity”. In order to determine whether it is a meteorite or not, special research is needed. Sometimes a visual inspection of the sample is sufficient, but more often special tests are required. The meteorite usually appears as a charred rock, with a black film or crust of fusion covering it as it flew through the atmosphere. If a 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 foundry wastes. This is usually iron silicate, which looks quite impressive as it initially seems. When waste is taken to be melted down, it is often lost along the way. It can show up in the most unusual place: in the forest, near the road, even in the garden...
Iron silicate or foundry waste. The composition of silicates includes silicon, as well as divalent and trivalent iron. Photo: Evgeny Shaposhnikov (Ufocom).
One of the samples transferred to Ufokom now takes its place in the BelNIGRI museum and is a piece of “foam” left over from the melting of iron. Photo: Evgeny Shaposhnikov (Ufocom).
- What about the waste left over from human activity in the Bronze and Iron Ages? They were smelting something.
Yes, maybe, but we haven’t seen such exhibits in the museum yet. After all, the formula is not difficult to establish; Fe and Si are almost always present in certain proportions.
- And in third place?
In third place are fragments of shells and various bombs that remained from two world wars. They are very similar - metal, melted, and lying in the ground... Very similar, some of them I couldn’t even visually identify - maybe it’s a meteorite after all. But we sent them for special tests, even to the laboratory of the Tractor or Motor Plant, where the appropriate equipment is available. Most of them give a definition: this is Krupp steel (a type of steel armor) of such and such a year.
Sometimes you come across such fragments of ancient shells that they have already been in the ground for so long that they look like a meteorite, these are even remnants of the First World War. But they cannot have a melting crust either. Such samples are very difficult to identify yourself.
Yesterday a man arrived from Gomel. He brought two samples. We did an X-ray and spectral analysis, and it turned out it was not a meteorite. The Gomel resident wanted to pick up a sample. I feel bad for him, but I have to pay him. He doesn't care. And the analysis now costs about 100 thousand Belarusian rubles, so before carrying your “meteorite”, stock up on this amount. Otherwise, future analyzes will become impossible altogether!
- Are there mistakes?
There are. Here is an interesting example that for a long time stood in the museum before me and was signed as a fragment of the Bragin meteorite. I doubted it because the fusion bark was missing, and I sent it for testing. In the end it turned out that this is an amphibolite - rock, the constituent parts of which are hornblende and plagioclase - and he had to replenish another collection - this time of pseudometeorites.
Help "UK". The “longest lying” Belarusian pseudometeorite is Ruzhansky, which we have already written about on our website. Its fragment was kept in the Slonim local history museum for 20 years. After the war, S.I. Ryng from the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences established that the sample stored in the museum was a boulder of sedimentary rock.
Meteorite tests at home
Appearance
There are three classes of meteorites: stony, iron (monolithic pieces of an iron-nickel alloy) and stony-iron (a metal sponge filled with a silicate substance). Meteorites tend to be heavier than commonly found minerals. Meteorites never melt through like slag and do not have bubbles, voids, or cavities inside. On the surface of meteorites, regmaglypts are often visible - smoothed depressions resembling finger indentations in clay, and the meteorite itself can have an aerodynamic shape.
On the surface of freshly fallen meteorites (recently fallen), you can see a melting crust. The body of the sample lacks layering, which is often observed in shale sandstones and jasper-like rocks. There are no carbonate rocks like chalk, limestone, dolomite. There are no fossils: shells, imprints of fossil fauna, etc. Meteorites do not have a large crystalline structure like granite.
Scratch test
Iron ore most often misleads search engines and researchers. Magnetite ( magnetic iron ore, FeO Fe 2 O 3) has pronounced magnetic properties(hence its name). Hematite (iron mineral Fe 2 O 3) also 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 way to do this, but effective method. The researchers called this test the “Scratch Test.” To do this, just vigorously scratch your sample onto... the unglazed surface of the ceramic (white) tile! If you don't have tiles at hand, an unglazed sink surface will do. You can also use the bottom of a ceramic coffee cup or the inside of a toilet cistern lid! 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 has survived the falling conditions and temperature effects, will not leave marks on the surface of the tile. However, it is important to remember that the scratch test, like all tests mentioned here, are just estimates (conditions are necessary, but not sufficient) and do not provide a definitive conclusion about the nature of your sample.
Hot stone effect
Some people are familiar with the so-called “hot stones”. In 25% of cases they turn out to be stone meteorites. The metal detector reacts to them as if with a slight delay, after passing over them. Iron and stony meteorites are distinguished by a very clear response from the device.
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 to look inside the sample.
The challenge is to explore the internal structure. To do this, you need to make a cut on one side of the sample and, if possible, polish it. Carefully examine the exposed surface of the polished section from different angles. If you see shiny metal flakes scattered across the surface on the thin section, then your sample has increased its 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 drop sharply.
Nickel test
All iron meteorites contain nickel, i.e. we are dealing with an iron-nickel alloy. Thus, testing a sample for nickel will often provide a definitive answer about the nature of your sample. If you have come this far, you are very persistent. To determine the nickel content in a sample, it is used chemical test using dimethylglyoxime. It can be obtained from a chemistry laboratory.
If you drop this organic compound(C 4 H 8 N 2 O 2) onto the surface of the sample, a bright red precipitate forms on the surface - the result of the interaction of dimethylglyoxime with nickel ions. Use caution when performing this test.
There is also this option: dissolve the drug in technical alcohol. In one liter of alcohol, after vigorous shaking, approximately 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 strips 5 mm wide, like litmus papers in dough, soak in the resulting solution and dry. Drop a few drops of ammonia (or regular vinegar) onto the sample, wait a couple of minutes and blot with a test strip. If the stripe turns light pink, then in front of you is most likely a meteorite; if it remains white, the stone can be thrown away or sold for scrap.
The nucleus of Comet Halley (photo on the left). Such a core, obviously, was the cause of the Tunguska disaster, the fall of a meteorite, the blast wave of which circled the globe twice. If you have ever held a meteorite in your hands, you are a happy person, because... you had a piece of an unknown world in your hands. Perhaps someone's Martian hand held this piece millions of years ago! Meteorites are celestial stones, i.e. those stones that fell from the sky.
There are many small fragments of asteroids in interplanetary space. They move around the Sun in their orbits, but so far they are not meteorites, but ordinary small celestial bodies, even if they are very tiny. If such a celestial body falls on Earth or another planet or its satellite, then it will become a meteorite. Once under the influence of gravity, the meteorite bursts into the dense layers of the atmosphere.
When a meteorite flies in the air, a powerful “wind” blows it from the front and from the sides and, melting the surface, blows off easily melting substances from it, and also generally smoothes out sharp edges and corners. Therefore, the outlines of the meteorite, if it did not split at the very end of its path, are more rounded than they were in airless space. The air, as it were, grinds the meteorite, but the result of such processing depends on the speed of the meteorite, on its shape, on its rotation in flight.
Here is a description of a characteristic picture of a meteorite fall in 1930, made by one of the eyewitnesses. On April 20, 1930, residents of the village of Staroye Boriskino (near the village of Kamyshlinka), at about 1 o’clock in the afternoon local time, accidentally noticed a round “light” flying across the sky, slightly smaller than the Moon, flying at an altitude of twenty degrees above the horizon. There was a kind of “fiery rope” stretching behind the light. The flight of the fireball lasted about five seconds, and after its disappearance, a cloud of smoke formed in the place where it disappeared, which gradually thickened and was visible for five minutes.
Soon after the cloud disappeared, a sound was heard in the western direction swipe, like a gun shot. Following it, a rumble was heard, and three seconds after the blow, a second, then a third, was heard, and in total about ten blows were heard, following each other three seconds later. The blows at first intensified, and then gradually became weaker; they seemed to be moving from the western side to the east, the last blow was clearly heard from the place where the “light” and the cloud of smoke disappeared. The roar of the last blow lasted for about five seconds and gradually died down.
25-30 seconds after the hum died down, they heard the sound again, at first very quiet, like wind, and then became louder and louder; at the same time, it seemed to have a rattling sound (uneven) and resembled the sound of shrapnel falling. This sound continued for 20-25 seconds and finally. as if something “whooped” - fell, there was a sound that could be described as “oooh”. The eyewitnesses did not notice any shaking or shaking of the ground, but they clearly felt that something had fallen on the garden not far from them; they thought it was a bomb falling. Together with the adults and children who ran up to them, about fifty people in all, went into the garden in no chain, looking for the fallen “bomb.” 12 meters from the yard they noticed a dark, half-meter wide, round spot.
Since there had been no rain for a long time before this, the chernozem soil plowed in the garden on top had dried out and turned grey, and against this gray background a dark spot of loosened wet soil stood out very clearly. There was no depression where the stain had been; it was level with common surface. One of the witnesses came up with everyone else to this place and began to tear the ground with his hand: the ground was loose. At a depth of 10-12 centimeters, he felt some solid object. He tried to take out (pick out with his finger) this solid object, but the earth was dense, and the object did not give in.
Only after the witness was given a stake, he stuck it into the ground and pulled out the object. Everyone who was here noticed that it was a stone, and not a bomb or a shell fragment; it was a meteorite. It was the size, as witnesses say, of a sheep’s head” and resembled the latter in its oblong shape. The meteorite was taken out of the ground “warm,” but “it could be held freely in your hands,” and no more than 20 minutes had passed since the fall. None of those who were present during the excavation of the meteorite or of the witnesses interviewed noticed anything scorched or burned near the meteorite.
The meteorite was melted on all sides and covered with black crust. No one noticed any cracks in the meteorite; when they took it out of the ground, it was clean, the earth did not stick to it, and a smoky smell was heard from the meteorite. Small meteorites fall to Earth every day, however, they cannot always be noticed, because... the vast majority of them fall far from settlements. It should be noted that more than 1000 tons (!) of meteorite matter fall to the Earth annually, but, alas, very, very few meteorites are noticed and found.
The sizes of falling meteorites vary greatly. Here short description largest meteorites. 1 - The largest known meteorite was dug up in the Goba area (that’s what it’s called) in southwestern Africa, where it remains to this day, as it weighs 60 tons and is difficult to move. It is iron and unusually rich in nickel, of which there are 16%, which makes it extremely difficult to cut. In two days of intense work, we barely managed to saw off a piece of 2.5 kg from the meteorite with hacksaws, constantly changing their blades, for chemical analysis.
2 - iron meteorite Anigito (aka Tent or Cap York) weighing 33 tons. It was picked up in the Greenland ice by the famous traveler Peary and brought it to New York in 1897, but it was discovered back in 1815, and the Eskimos knew about it even earlier.
3 - the iron meteorite Bakubirito, weighing 24 tons, is still located at the site of its fall in Mexico.
4 - Willamette, found in the USA and weighs 14 tons. Atmospheric influences destroyed and crumbled out of it part of its mass; before that it weighed 25 tons.
Meteorites are very valuable material for research. By studying the composition of meteorites, you can find out their age and, accordingly, the age of the planet or asteroid from which this meteorite could have arrived.
Scheme of the formation of small celestial bodies as a result of the collision of two asteroids of different sizes, which can become meteorites by falling to Earth. Meteorites from other planets can be formed due to larger meteorites, which, falling onto the surface of the planet at high speed, knock out rocks from the surface of the planet, which can reach a critical speed (escape velocity) and fly into outer space.
Wandering around solar system millions of years, this stone may eventually fall to Earth. It was just such a meteorite that came to us from Mars and made a lot of noise thanks to the organic fossils found in it, which indicates the possible existence of life on Mars in the distant past. Given the great interest in meteorites, you can start searching for them, especially since meteorites have a high cost and the finder of the meteorite is entitled to a reward. How to look for meteorites?
First of all, you need to have an idea of what a meteorite looks like. The photos below show the main types of meteorites. Using them, you can identify and distinguish an ordinary stone from a meteorite if you find a suspicious stone (unusual, melted, etc.). One very important point. When searching for meteorites, always carry a compass with you! It is with the help of a compass (by the deviation of the arrow towards the stone) that you can determine the MAGNETICITY OF THE STONE - the first sign of an extraterrestrial nature.
Of course, in areas of magnetic ore deposits, this method will not be suitable, but in other areas this is the best way to distinguish an ordinary stone from a meteorite. It should be noted that there are chondrite meteorites that are non-magnetic. They can be identified by their appearance, resembling a piece of coal with small brown specks. Stone-iron meteorites are an iron sponge, in the pores of which there is a stony substance, or vice versa, a stony sponge with an iron substance.
They make up 1.5% of the total number of meteorites falling to Earth. Iron meteorite. They make up 5.7% of the total number of meteorites falling to Earth. Meteorites are often discovered under random circumstances, many years and even tens and hundreds of years after their fall. Therefore, usually the date of fall of such meteorites remains unknown. Most often, iron meteorites are found, which persist in the soil much longer than stone ones and, in addition, attract more attention than stone ones. Meteorites can be discovered when digging ditches and wells, laying roads, developing peat, uprooting stumps, and especially often in various mines, when laying pits, etc. Meteorites are often discovered when plowing fields.
It is necessary to be very careful about stones or pieces of iron that come across in faces, mines, placers, during various types of excavation work, when developing peat, when plowing fields and, especially, virgin and fallow lands, as well as under other circumstances.
With such finds, you need to carefully separate a small piece, avoiding the destruction of the entire found sample (sometimes such a piece is easily separated and without any damage to the find due to the onset of oxidation and destruction of the meteorite). It must be said that identifying meteorites, especially stone ones and, moreover, lying in the soil for a long time, is not so easy. Sometimes only a specialist, as a result of a special study, will be able to finally resolve the question of the nature of the found sample.
Recently fallen meteorites, which have not had time to undergo weathering, have the following main characteristics. Stone meteorites are covered with a thin (no more than 1 mm) blackish-brown, sometimes gray from soil coatings, melting crust. This crust, like a thin shell, covers the meteorite on all sides. It is especially noticeable along the edge of the meteorite fracture.
If the bark has already begun to deteriorate as a result of oxidation and weathering when the meteorite lies in the soil for a long time, then its color becomes brownish-reddish and rusty. Melting crust is also observed on iron meteorites, on which fresh crust has a faint bluish tint. In places, on ledges, the bark is often peeled off, and here a metallic sheen is observed. The surfaces of meteorites (both stone and iron), covered with a fusion crust, are usually distinguished by the smoothness of their protrusions.
Stone meteorites that fell relatively long ago easily crumble and fall apart. In this case, you can notice that the entire internal substance of the meteorite is, as it were, saturated with oxide products - rust. After finding a meteorite, if one occurs, it is necessary to do detailed description circumstances and location of the find. It also indicates the date of discovery, type of soil, depth of the meteorite, its location in the soil, etc.
It is very advisable to attach at least a schematic map of the area to the description indicating two or three settlements and the location of the meteorite. If the found meteorite turns out to be so highly oxidized and weathered that it falls into pieces, or is found in a dilapidated state, then you need to very carefully examine the area around the find site in order to detect possible fragments of the meteorite. As in the previous case, it is highly advisable to attach photographs to the description general view where the meteorite was found, as well as photographs of individual details.
The description indicates the last name, first name and patronymic of the person who found the meteorite, his occupation and specialty, as well as his postal address. You can report your finds to our website. In the future, we will notify specialists from the meteorite committee, who will need to send a sample from the stone for analysis and, if it is confirmed that the found stone is indeed a meteorite, then you are guaranteed a reward. If you witnessed a meteorite fall, then you need to make detailed observations and describe the fall. Successful searches and successful finds!
Our planet is surrounded by a huge number of different celestial bodies. Small ones, when falling to Earth, go unnoticed, but 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 hits 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 fell on Earth
On April 22, 2012, a celestial body appeared near the surface of the Earth, moving at tremendous speed. Flying over the US 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 of the explosion. Research by scientists has established that the Sutter Mill meteorite was formed during the formation of the solar system. 
A year has already passed since February 2012, when hundreds of meteorite rocks fell over an area of 100 km in China. Eyewitnesses still remember this extraordinary event. Most large meteorite of those 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. 
At the crash site, a crater 6 m deep and 30 m in diameter formed, from which a fountain erupted hot water. The effects of the meteorite are still being felt today local residents.
Most likely included celestial body toxic substances were included, 1,500 people living in the area closest to the crash site suffered severe headaches.
In the summer of 1998, a meteorite fell near the Turkmen city of Kunya-Urgench, which received the name of the city. The fall of the celestial body was accompanied by a bright light. At the site where the largest meteorite fragment (weighing 820 kg) fell, a five-meter crater formed. Fortunately, no local residents were injured; the meteorite fell on a cotton field. 
Scientists have established the age of the Turkmen meteorite - more than 4 billion years, this is the largest among the stone meteorites that fell on the territory of the CIS. Among all the known stone meteorites that fell to Earth, Kunya-Urgench is the third largest. Stone meteorites most often fall to Earth, their share is almost 93% of all types of celestial bodies that fell on the planet. The Chelyabinsk meteorite, according to the first estimates of scientists, was iron.
Meteorite Sterlitamak, 1990
On the night of May 17, 1990, a celestial body weighing 315 kilograms fell 20 kilometers from Sterlitamak. The meteorite, called Sterlitamak, left a crater with a diameter of 10 meters at the site of its impact on a state farm field. The largest fragment was not found immediately, but only a year later, at a depth of 12 meters. Nowadays it is an exhibit of the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography. The meteorite, weighing 315 kilograms, has dimensions of 0.5x0.4x0.25 meters.
In March 1976, the largest shower of rock meteorites in history occurred in the Chinese province of Jilin. The fall of cosmic bodies to Earth continued for 37 minutes, the speed of the fall reached 12 kilometers per second. About a hundred meteorites were found, the largest of which was named Jilin (Girin), weighing 1.7 tons. 
In the winter of 1947, a meteorite fell in the form of iron rain in the Far Eastern Ussuri taiga in the Sikhote-Alin mountains. Having fragmented in the atmosphere as a result of the explosion, the meteorite turned into many fragments that fell over an area of 10 sq. km. In 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 over a vast area. 
The largest meteorite currently known to science 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 approximately 80,000 years, in 1920 the meteorite was found in Namibia. 
The Goba meteorite is the heaviest of all cosmic bodies that has ever hit the surface of our planet. It consists mainly of iron. Now it is the largest piece of naturally occurring iron on Earth. It still lies in Namibia, southwest Africa. Since its discovery, the meteorite has lost almost 6 tons in weight as a result of scientific research, erosion and vandalism. Now it weighs 60 tons. 
The mysterious Tunguska meteorite is considered one of the most studied on the planet, but continues to be the most mysterious phenomenon 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. Over an uninhabited taiga region, the object exploded at an altitude of 7-10 km. The blast wave circled the globe twice and was so powerful 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 speeds of tens of kilometers per second.
The blast wave felled trees over an area of more than 200 sq. km, and window panes were broken 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 a vast area for several days. 
The answer to the question: what was that? - still no. If the fireball was a meteorite, then a gigantic crater with a depth of at least 500 m should have appeared at the crash site. But in all subsequent years it was never found. The Tunguska meteorite remains a mystery of the 20th century. The celestial body exploded in the air, the consequences were colossal, and no remains or debris were ever found on Earth. 
Meteor shower, USA, 1833
On an autumn November night in 1833, a plane passed over the territory of the United States. meteor Rain. Within 10 hours, meteorites of various sizes fell onto the surface of the Earth, the total number of which exceeded 240,000. The source of this phenomenon was the most powerful of the currently known meteor showers, which is called Leonids.
About two dozen meteorite showers pass near the Earth every day. Scientists know about 50 comets that theoretically have the potential to cross the Earth's orbit. About once every ten years the Earth collides with relatively small cosmic bodies. Despite the fact that the movement of celestial bodies has been quite well studied and predicted, the next collision of a meteorite with the surface of the Earth is always a mysterious and surprising phenomenon for most of the planet’s inhabitants.
HD Video of Meteor Shower
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 fragment of this celestial body found, the authenticity of which has now been confirmed by scientists.
Earlier it was reported that specialists from Chelyabinsk state university(ChelSU) confirmed the authenticity of a fragment of the Chelyabinsk meteorite weighing 3.4 kilograms, 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 became lighter to 3.36 kilograms, since a piece was cut off for research.
“I’m selling the Chelyabinsk meteorite with a certificate. This fragment is officially recognized as the largest found,” such a message can be found on one of the popular ad sites. Price - 2.112 million rubles. As the author, Chelyabinsk resident Alexey Usenkov, told RIA Novosti, he determined it without involving experts: “the price is taken from the minimum possible price for this meteorite and the maximum possible.”
“I think that this stone can become one of the symbols of some new shopping and entertainment center in the city of Chelyabinsk,” said the agency’s interlocutor, noting that he does 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 don’t plan to sell it yet, but it was unclear with Lake Chebarkul what would happen there. And when it became known that mine sooner or later would not be the largest, I decided to sell it. The fact is that if mine were the largest, then it belongs in a museum,” Usenkov explained.
Now specialists are working to search for and recover an alleged meteorite fragment weighing several hundred kilograms from Lake Chebarkul. According to the Minister of Radiation and environmental safety region of Alexander Galicia, it must be raised before October 4. During the operation, divers recovered several stones that could be fragments of a celestial body, one of them weighs 4.8 kilograms.
How a meteorite fell in the Urals
The meteorite, later named "Chelyabinsk", fell on February 15. Not only residents reported the fall of a space object Chelyabinsk region, but also Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Kostanay (the administrative center of the Kostanay region in northern Kazakhstan) and the Kurgan region. The blast wave broke windows in more than 7 thousand buildings, of which more than 6 thousand were residential buildings. According to the Ministry of Regional Development, for medical care More than 1.6 thousand people came forward, mostly victims of broken glass. As scientists have established, the asteroid that fell in the Chelyabinsk region may have experienced collisions with other cosmic bodies or flew very close to the Sun. What types of meteorites are there?
Chemical analysis of fragments of the celestial body showed that this is an ordinary chondrite of type LL5 - 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 the Russians tried to turn a meteor shower into gold
The Chelyabinsk region, which had barely recovered from the meteor shower, was gripped by a new misfortune: local residents rushed to look for meteorite fragments, hoping to then sell them to collectors at online auctions. Enterprising people from other countries hastened to embrace the idea of Chelyabinsk residents. Scientists warn: it is quite difficult to distinguish a real meteorite from debris. The police have opened a hunt for space rock sellers.