Our planet is daily exposed to real space bombardments. Hundreds of small and not very meteorites attack the Earth, fortunately, burning in the atmosphere. Only a few manage to reach the surface, while maintaining a significant size.
Today we offer to consider Top 10 largest meteorites that have fallen to the Earth since the beginning of the 20th century. We did not include in the top ten huge cosmic bodies that left scars on the face of the planet millions of years ago.
Today, at the site of the fall of those meteors, there are craters, often turned into lakes, for example, Mistastin Lake in Canada and the 45-kilometer Karakul Lake in Tajikistan.
10. Sutter Mill Meteorite, April 22, 2012
A meteorite flew in the sky to the United States and exploded directly over Washington. The power of the explosion was about 4 kilotons of TNT. Enthusiasts found many fragments of different sizes not only in Washington, but also in the states of Nevada and California.
9. Meteorite that fell in China on February 11, 2012
On the night of February 11, the sky over China was colored with hundreds of meteor shower lights. Space bodies bombarded an area of 100 square kilometers. The largest meteorite found weighed 12.6 kg.
8. Peruvian meteorite, September 15, 2007
This meteorite fell in broad daylight near Lake Titicaca. A crater with a depth of 6 and a diameter of 30 meters was formed at the crash site. Shortly after the fall, more than one and a half thousand people said they were experiencing severe headaches.
7. Meteorite Kunya-Urgench, Turkmenistan, June 20, 1998
A huge meteorite fell at night near the city of Kunya-Urgench. The largest fragment weighed 820 kg, and scientists determined its age at around 4 billion years.
6. Meteorite Sterlitamak, May 17, 1990
A large meteorite weighing 315 kg left a crater with a diameter of more than 10 meters at the crash site. The space guest was placed in the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography of the Ufa Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where everyone can enjoy it.
5. China, March 8, 1976
One of the largest meteorites found fell to Earth during a powerful meteor shower. Its weight was 1.7 tons. At the same time, this giant in the sky for 37 minutes burned thousands of smaller cosmic bodies.
4. Meteorite Sikhote-Alin, Russia, Far East, February 12, 1947
This huge meteorite exploded in the atmosphere, and its fragments formed on the Earth's surface more than 30 craters from 7 to 28 m to 6 meters deep. Scientists have collected about 27 tons of debris of various sizes, which allows us to judge the significant size of the meteorite.
3. The Goba Meteorite, Namibia, 1920
This meteorite flew to the earth about 20 thousand years ago, but was found only in 1920. The stone weighs more than 60 tons. Moreover, scientists say that during the time elapsed from its fall, the meteorite "lost weight" due to erosion and the actions of vandals.
2. Chelyabinsk meteorite, February 15, 2013
This meteorite, of course, is not the largest, but one of the most famous. Space bodies rarely fall in the area of large settlements, as happened in Chelyabinsk. Before the explosion, the meteorite weighed about 10 thousand tons and had a diameter of 17 meters. According to NASA, it is this meteorite - the largest since the legendary Tunguska.
1. Tunguska meteorite, June 30, 1908
Scientists do not know the mass of the most famous meteorite, naming only its limits - from 100 thousand to 1 million tons. The blast wave from a meteorite bursting over the taiga twice circled the globe. As a result, trees were tumbled down over 2 thousand square meters. km, and in houses a hundred kilometers from the explosion glass flew out. The glow in the sky above the taiga persisted for several days.
Bonus video:
Hard ice, ice from gas, ice baked!
