WOW : Every meteorite since 861 AD: watch them fall

Originally posted by Im2keul
reply to post by Qumulys

 

Pretty neat video. It does have a 4th of July sound if the volume is up.

I know the Universe seems to be a scary place to live!, the very ground under our feet shaking like crazy, bombarded from the sky constantly.

Its a tribute to mans ingenuity that we are still here

reply to post by Quantum_Squirrel


This is very cool, thanks for posting!
S & F

I agree the animation could be a little misleading if it causes people to think impacts are more frequent. We are just recording more of them, is the most likely explanation for the apparent increase in frequency.

Originally posted by Im2keul
I read something like that. Somewhere in the tons a year.

Here is a link.

wiki.answers.com...

That's not a good source. The amount varies but try tons a day, about 40 tons a day on average.

Source: Leinert C.; Gruen E. (1990). "Interplanetary Dust". Physics and Chemistry in Space (R. Schwenn and E. Marsch eds.). Springer-Verlag. pp. 204--275.

was the tunggusta explosion on it?

Firstly - thank you OP for posting this. Educational and fascinating to see this data represented in the way it has been here!

Secondly - as always Arbitrageur is spot on with the hard facts. Keep up the good work

Originally posted by ressiv
was the tunggusta explosion on it?

T hat explosion is not in the animation as the Tunguska meteorite is thought to have exploded above ground, the animation shows meteorites that impacted earth only. So even though its a big event in recent history it is not shown.

reply to post by Quantum_Squirrel


It is actually in there and listed as "13 grams"... a bit odd to say the least!

Originally posted by Quantum_Squirrel

Originally posted by ressiv
was the tunggusta explosion on it?

T hat explosion is not in the animation as the Tunguska meteorite is thought to have exploded above ground, the animation shows meteorites that impacted earth only. So even though its a big event in recent history it is not shown.

Good Morning Quantum_ Squirrel, I got to looking and it does show the Tunguska event on there, although it's listed at only 13 gr .I imagine for the reason you said, it exploded in air and not much left to hit Earth?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
I agree the animation could be a little misleading if it causes people to think impacts are more frequent. We are just recording more of them, is the most likely explanation for the apparent increase in frequency.

Originally posted by Im2keul
I read something like that. Somewhere in the tons a year.

Here is a link.

wiki.answers.com...

That's not a good source. The amount varies but try tons a day, about 40 tons a day on average.

Source: Leinert C.; Gruen E. (1990). "Interplanetary Dust". Physics and Chemistry in Space (R. Schwenn and E. Marsch eds.). Springer-Verlag. pp. 204--275.

Wow! That's alot more than I thought, Thanks for the correction.

The Russian and Argentinian meterites this year are very special and frightening sights never witnessed before by modern man. We are now passing through a meteorite belt ,I think it's called Orian or something like that

reply to post by Quantum_Squirrel


That is so cool!

Ties in nicely with this:
Every meteorite fall on earth mapped

reply to post by abbey7777


You are way off the mark on all counts.

Whilst Chelyabinsk was one of the largest fireballs in recent history, it was not unique, and there have been similar sized events in the last 100 years (although not quite as big). For example the Sikhote-Alin meteorite in 1947 as Quantum_Squirrel pointed out here.

The Argentinian fireball was not quite on the same scale as Chelyabinsk, Sikhote-Alin, and of course Tunguska (probably the largest fireball in modern history). There are plenty of examples of fireballs on this scale, such as this one that occurred over South Africa in 2009:



Here is a list of meteor air bursts from Wikipedia. As you can see, there have been many large fireballs who's energy release is similar in terms of that released from nuclear blasts.

We are not moving through a "meteorite belt" any more than we have been in previous years/decades/centuries. If anything, we are probably being bombarded less than we have been in the past due to the planets (especially large ones like Jupiter and Saturn) and the Sun "hoovering up" the debris in the solar system which was left over from when the solar system formed.

Originally posted by gort51
I went outside last night to sky watch, and saw 2 meteors in 10 minutes.
Over the years I would have seen 1000s, from large fireballs, to small streaks of light.

From Green tinged balls, to bright white, to yellow ones.

No doubt this space debris adds 1000s+ tons of Dirt, water, minerals and stuff to Earth every year.

Dont forget, we see them easily at night, but they are still falling during the day too,.....everywhere.

Our Fascinating Universe.

I remember sitting at the bench at Maple Grove Mall in Oakville one Saturday afternoon waiting for the bus (1994/1996, and seeing a meteor flash and trail in the gap between two buildings. The other people walking around, parking cars, and driving away didn't see a thing.

My family used to go out in our back garden in the Summer evenings to do some astronomy. We'd see the constellations, the planets Mars and Venus, the Harvest moon, many meteors and even the sunlight being reflected from the solar panels of satellites (barely visible as tiny fast moving points of light).

Out in the countryside we could go off the motorway, take a side lane and see the whole milky way. The distant rumbling of the freeway always made the galaxy seem as it if were some giant busy industrial city. I'd always wonder whether their were freight ships travelling between the stars.

No way to claim every siting seen by a human since that year was recorded so I'm not sure of the value of this.

Also it looks like a rapid rise since 1800 which is not scientifically true but rather an artifact based on reporting.

In sum the data is not strong because there is no way to account for every meteor striking the earth since not every square inch of the planet has been examined nor have all humans been queried about whether they say a meteor.

Finally there is no way to confirm if what people saw was a meteor, a comet, or something else.

The graphic is neat looking though.

i wonder if the increase is from our tracking getting better or its really increasing that much?. thanks for posting.

reply to post by theboarman


As mentioned before, there are a few factors such as: increasing population, and better communication between people, which would include the invention of the printing press. More recently TV/radio, the internet, and twitter are all contributing.

Tracking is irrelevant - but we are getting better at finding near earth objects in the first place, and there are lots and lots of smaller "Chelyabinsk sized" objects out there which will take a while to find.

The jury is still out on if there has been a recent increase in medium sized fireballs, but if there has been one (which I don't think there has) it is probably smaller than most people here seem to think once you take into account all the factors involved like better reporting of these type of events. This thread I started sums it up.

Between all the political and non-sense topics, this is just AWESOME!!! Thank you!

Its just because the tracking is better

That is quite an undertaking since pretty much all meteorites and reports of them dating before 1803 were destroyed.

In the late 1700's the Académie Française des Sciences debunked the notion that rocks could possibly fall from the sky, and so museums around the world quietly disposed of their collections and records.

Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, is quoted as saying:
"Stones cannot fall from the sky, because there are no stones in the sky!"

Most scientists shared Isaac Newton's view that that no small objects could exist in the interplanetary space, and so any scientist that studied meteorites was labelled as a medieval, superstitious ignorant.

It wasn't until 26th of April 1803, when a shower of 2000 meteorites hit a town in Normandy, France, was the scientific community forced to reassess their position.

However, it wasn't until 1833, that the Leonid Meteor Shower forced American scientists to review their position on the subject.

@ Laststarfighter

Great name, great film for its time :p

No way to claim every siting seen by a human since that year was recorded so I'm not sure of the value of this.

Finally there is no way to confirm if what people saw was a meteor, a comet, or something else.

No one is saying this is all the meteorites witnessed by human beings after 861AD, it is just a representation of every RECORDED sighting on record (the data we do have).. I am sure there is much much more witnessed but never recorded, landed but never witnessed etc etc.. btw these are ones that hit earth that they have discovered the weight of the remains so to address your final point they ARE all confirmed meteorites, not comets, ufo's etc etc.

@ theboarman

I wonder if the increase is from our tracking getting better or its really increasing that much?. thanks for posting.

The increase is almost certainly attributed to the more sophisticated recording methods and communication speeds available today.

In fact as i said earlier if we could see the whole picture (i.e accurate data for past 3000 years) i would bet my Grandma's back teeth that we would witness a decrease, as solar systems stabilize and our gas giants hoover up the strays.

@ flyandi

Why thank you very much, I also look forward to the real topics rather than the perpetual doom porn peddling, don't get me wrong ATS is fantastic for breaking alternative news.. but people tend to run to extremes with said information.

@ Undergetty

A VERY interesting point thank you , I did not know this.. I wonder even though the physical records are destroyed was the cataloging of them also destroyed?

Thanks all for your comments so many flags not many comments though, I guess everyone is enjoying the animation rather than wanting to talk about it


I have said it before I will say it again , I find it deeply Ironic that as humans we kill each other over meaningless chunks of rock under our feet..

When there are literally an unlimited supply of said rocks hurtling towards us at unimaginable speeds..