The most famous meteorite falls of the 20th and 21st centuries (6 photos)

We live in a world where celestial bodies are something that the average person can only look at through telescopes, but certainly cannot touch, for example, Venus, Mars, and the rest of the planets too.





But sometimes, from space, something comes to us that disrupts the usual way of life and becomes a real sensation. Probably in ancient times people believed that the gods were so angry with them. But now we understand that a piece of space has come to visit us.

Chelyabinsk meteorite



Many Chelyabinsk residents remember February 15, 2013, when the most powerful meteorite in the last 30 years fell in the vicinity of their city.

NASA reports that after the Tunguska meteorite, this is the largest celestial body that fell to Earth. The shock wave circled the Earth twice, and the power, in TNT equivalent, was about 0.5 megatons.

The largest fragment found weighs 570 kg, and as a result of the explosion, almost 1.6 thousand people were injured (mainly due to broken windows).

Tunguska meteorite





It is perhaps the most famous of all that struck the earth in the 20th century. The meteorite fell near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in the Evenki district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

The cosmic body fell to Earth in June 1908. The power of the explosion was estimated at 40-50 megatons - comparable to the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. And the explosion itself occurred at an altitude of 7-10 km. It’s far from populated areas, but glass in houses flew out even two hundred kilometers from the epicenter, and for several more nights the sky and clouds glowed. The forest was completely felled over an area of ​​2 thousand square km. Expeditions of researchers were able to reach the site only after 15 years and no significant fragments of the meteorite could be found. But tiny balls were found, which indicated the cosmic origin of the body.

Conspiracy theorists, of course, could not ignore it and came up with a lot of theories that the fall of the Tunguska meteorite was not a cosmic event at all.

"Brazilian Tunguska"



22 years after the meteorite fell on the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in August 1930, in the jungles of the extreme north-west of Brazil, near the Brazilian borders with Peru and Colombia, in the area of ​​the Kurusa and Javari rivers, 240 km from the cities of Esperanza and Atalaya do Norte (or Atalaya do Norte). On the morning of the annual Perseid meteor shower, the sun turned red, ash flew and a terrifying roar was heard. Explosions were heard at a distance of up to 250 km. There were two shocks and we can conclude that there were two celestial bodies.

Somewhat later, from a satellite, an area with a diameter of one and a half kilometers with fallen forest was found. In 1997, a crater from a fallen celestial body was also found.

Kamchatka meteorite



In December 2018, the Kamchatka meteorite exploded over the Bering Sea. It was recorded by NASA satellites several hundred kilometers from the coast of Kamchatka at an altitude of 26 km from the sea. Everything happened in a rather deserted place, so it went unnoticed for a long time. Meanwhile, the power of the explosion was seven times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima!

Vitimsky car



On the night of September 24-25, 2002, at approximately two o'clock, a meteorite fell in the Mamsko-Chuysky district of the Irkutsk region. Eyewitnesses said that the size of the fireball could be compared with the apparent size of the Moon. And despite the fact that the explosion was small (by the standards of cosmic bodies), at the crash site one could see consequences similar to the fall of the Tunguska meteorite. The forest was felled in an area of ​​approximately 6 by 10 km and a fire broke out in an area of ​​2 by 3 km.