About meteorites

I held them in my hands. They were heavy, obviously metal (although there are stone and extremely rarely - furious). What is immediately striking is their shape and unearthly texture on the cut. A very beautiful interweaving of fibers and nets, as if some wizard wove, blinded or drooped them, and then turned them into iron. There is an article , if interesting.

And also "meteorites" - the headache of our geological museum. Personally, he witnessed how 8 years ago the head of the museum exploded in response to some reproach of the director about the following phrase: "Yes, these meteorites were already sore. But they bring them almost every week. I will soon hang the announcement:" We do not accept meteorites "." I can imagine how now they will trample on the institute any trash under the guise of celestial bodies.

Seriously. If it suddenly seems to someone that he found something like a meteorite, then you can safely throw it away. Because a meteorite, as a second coming, cannot be confused with anything.

As for the possibility of preventing what happened in Chelyabinsk. The speed of the fall of most cosmic bodies on the planet within the solar system is between the second and third cosmic speed. Roughly speaking, for the Earth at least 10 and no more than 50 km/s. The kinetic energy of small meteorics in 10 kg at such speeds will be from 500 to 12500 MJ. When falling to Earth, all this energy is transmitted to it to her home (in the atmosphere and on the surface). For comparing a kilogram of TNT equivalent - 4.2 MJ. A meteorite weighing about 10 kg may well turn into a ton of TNT equivalent (depending on the speed and angle of entering the atmosphere).

Imagine which tarraram can arrange a piece of one ton, and for space it is not even sneezing. It will arrive - you will not notice.