As soon as a meteorite exploded over Chelyabinsk, the so-called “hunters” immediately appeared. And all because you can make serious money selling “space stones”.
Introduction
In fact, no one yet knows more precisely about what happened. Some believe that the meteorite fell into Lake Chebarkul. But nothing was found in the lake, and therefore there is a version that the meteorite did not reach the ground, but “exploded” in the air (like the Tunguska meteorite).
The meteorite caused a lot of destruction to the city and surrounding area. The main problem is the winter cold, and many buildings have lost windows due to the blast wave. Hospitals are full of victims, but these are mostly mild and moderate cases (I personally don’t know about any deaths).
Business
In this world, the rarest things are usually the most expensive. That’s why meteorite fragments are very valuable. As a rule, in every country there is a group of people who search and sell " space rocks" Some shards are so valuable that the price reaches up to $1,500 per gram!
But professional “hunters” are in no hurry to go to Chelyabinsk. And all because meteorites are different and their prices vary greatly. Most likely, a “cheap” meteorite exploded over Chelyabinsk. There is a possibility that it was actually a block of ice that burned up in the atmosphere.
Although even such a meteorite can be sold for ten dollars per gram. In addition, various meteorites fall to Earth quite often, many people simply do not notice it. And most of these meteorites are simple rock fragments, the value of which varies from 10 to 50 cents per gram.
Expertise
Every day a person appears who claims to have found a meteorite. As a rule, in 99% of cases these are simple stones. Naturally, now in Chelyabinsk almost every tenth person offers to buy a “real” piece of meteorite from him.
Therefore, professional “hunters” conduct lengthy examinations to find out the composition of the meteorite, its value and authenticity. Large iron or stony-iron meteorites are considered the most valuable. Small fragments are usually not needed by anyone.
Is there no meteorite in Chelyabinsk?
Chelyabinsk search services stated that they did not find meteorite fragments either in the lake or anywhere else. Immediately people began to put forward various theories.
The most likely: the meteorite exploded and burned in the air. And if there are fragments left after it, they are of little value.
Conspiracy theory: the meteorite was already pulled out of the lake by someone smarter. Or maybe the municipal authorities also wanted to make money from the meteorite...
Alien theory: Fell in Chelyabinsk alien ship with an alien on board. But the alien quickly disappeared, and therefore no one found anything. Just a Clark Kent story :)
Catastrophic theory: there is a small probability that it was not a meteorite, but an unsuccessful test of some kind of launch vehicle. But this is unlikely...
If you find a meteorite
If you find a meteorite, do not rush to look for buyers. First you need to determine the type of meteorite you have and its approximate price. The examination can be carried out in a special expert institution. Usually in large universities The Faculty of Geology or similar has its own laboratories. You will have to spend your time and some money, but if the examination confirms your find, then your efforts will pay off.
It’s even better if you find people who professionally search for and sell meteorites. Then they will help you with expertise and sales. But you will have to give them a percentage of the sale.
If you don’t want to share with anyone, then look for buyers directly. Very often people try to sell meteorites through eBay. Attach photographs of your fragment, an expert opinion and other documents (if any) to your application. Usually, experienced meteorite buyers resell them. This means that they will try to reduce your price to the maximum. In addition, many simply will not believe you that you have a real meteorite. This means that the buyer may want to conduct their own additional due diligence.
Conclusions
It is very difficult to make money on meteorites. After all, this is very hard work. The meteorite must first be found, then an examination must be carried out and a buyer must be found. It’s just that there are always problems with searches.
However, those lucky ones who were lucky enough to find a piece of an expensive meteorite will be provided for for life. But such people can be counted on one hand in the entire history of mankind.
P.S. Recently, small fragments of a meteorite were found. Hundreds of offers to buy the Chelyabinsk meteorite have already appeared on the Internet, although almost all of them are scams. According to our scientists working at the explosion site, they found more than 50 small fragments of the meteorite. The price for these fragments is still unknown, since the price also depends on demand. Russian experts value the fragments at $2,000 per gram. And American experts argue that the price is too high and that the real cost is about $100 per gram.
Interestingly, 4 years ago on the same day, a meteorite of the same type exploded over Texas. Pieces of the Texas meteorite cost from 20 to 100 dollars per gram.
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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,” the agency’s interlocutor said, 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. About the fall space object not only residents reported Chelyabinsk region, but also Ekaterinburg, Tyumen, Kostanay ( administrative center Kostanay region in northern Kazakhstan) and 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 area may have collided with other cosmic bodies or flew very close to the Sun. What types of meteorites are there?
Chemical analysis fragments of a 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.
In the first lines historical novel Belarusian-Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz’s “Fire and Sword” describes solar eclipse 1647 and the appearance in the sky of a comet burning like a star, which, according to ancient beliefs, brings wars, disasters and epidemics. The appearance of the star wanderer was recorded in historical chronicles, as well as in chronicles. Some researchers suggest that this comet, most likely, was the Bragin meteorite, which, having exploded, brought down to the earth star shower, consisting of iron fragments of different sizes, and covered a significant area, looking like an elongated ellipse 15 kilometers long.
The Bragin meteorite, which belongs to a rare type of meteorite called pallasites, was found by accident in 1807 by peasants of the Bragin region in Belarus in a marshy area. But even today, fragments are still found on the territory of the Braginsky district when digging pits or digging wells. The largest fragment is considered to be a found fragment weighing two hundred and seventy kilograms.
Since they have the same structure and composition, this suggests that a strong meteor shower of pallasites fell here many years ago. The meteorite, before reaching the ground, disintegrated into small pieces in the atmosphere. The entire area where the meteorites were found extends approximately 15 km.
The first fragments of a meteorite found at the beginning of the nineteenth century were taken to Moscow as ordinary scrap iron. There the merchant Sitnikov drew attention to them and immediately appreciated the non-standard nature of the find. He bought the goods at a bargain price for iron raw materials and very successfully resold them in England at a much higher cost, already as a meteorite.
Section of the Bragin meteorite
In 1882, the Brenham meteorite was found in the United States, in Kansas. The story of its discovery was not entirely ordinary.
Farmer Kimberly collected about a ton of stones on his estate at the insistence of his wife Eliza, who claimed that they were meteorites. But it was not until 1890 that a geology professor at the University of Wisconsin confirmed that these stones were indeed meteorites and acquired several samples.
Famous meteorite hunters found many fragments of the Brenham meteorite in these parts in 1930, and amateur geologist Stockwell from Hutchinson was lucky enough to discover a stone weighing 453 kilograms in 1947
In 2005, Steve Arnold, an English actor, followed the sound of his metal sensor and headed towards a 650 kg meteorite fragment. This meteorite, which originated in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, fell on our planet more than a thousand years ago. After Steve began digging with a shovel in the area where the increasingly stronger signals were coming from, he was forced to use an excavator to finally dig up the huge rock.
It wasn't just a big iron rock, this meteorite had beautiful green crystals. Thus, Steve Arnold managed to find the largest meteorite of this type on our planet. Everyone who was lucky enough to see this meteorite repeats that it is simply impossible to describe it in words. This extraterrestrial stone is a must see. A meteorite is a real work of art, only the creator of this work was not man, but Nature itself.
The extremely rare stone, which has been featured in museums in Kansas and Texas and at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in Arizona, recently came up for sale.
Steve Arnold planned to receive at least one million dollars for this unusual stone. Potential clients who may respond to an offer to buy this rarity include museums, various corporations, as well as fairly large sellers of meteorites.
And the meteorite field where Steve Arnold found his stone has been used as a filming location for several television documentaries.
In 1902, a palassite meteorite known as Marjalahti fell in Karelia. As it fell, it hit a rock ledge, broke into pieces and sank in Lake Marjalahti, a bay of Lake Ladoga. Local residents witnessed this fall. In June 1902, after a long search, one of the meteorite fragments weighing 45 kg was recovered from the lake. Now it is in the geological museum of the University of Helsinki, since this territory at that time belonged to Finland.
After the meteorite was examined, the precious olivine crystals in it were identified as follows: high quality, which have been adopted as an official standard.
Already today, several teams of “hunters” have set out in search of an expensive meteorite. “But there was a war in this place, and there is a huge amount of iron in the lake. And our devices are simply glitchy,” say the “meteorite hunters.” According to them, only one diver found the fragment.
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 twice globe. If you have ever held a meteorite in your hands, you happy man, 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 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 strong blow, like a cannon shot, was heard in the western direction. 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.
About 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 without a 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 dried out and turned gray on top, and that’s it. gray background a dark spot of loosened, damp earth 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 her 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 brief description largest meteorites. 1 - The largest known meteorite was excavated in the Goba area (that’s what it’s called) in southwest africa, where it remains to this day, since it weighs 60 tons, and it is difficult to move it. 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 in 1897 brought it to New York, 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 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 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 with magnetic ore deposits, this method will not be suitable, but in other areas it will best way distinguish an ordinary stone from a meteorite. It should be noted that there are chondrite meteorites that are non-magnetic. They can be determined by appearance, resembling a piece of coal with small brown inclusions. Stone-iron meteorites are an iron sponge, in the pores of which there is a stony substance, or, conversely, 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 remain in the soil much longer than stone ones and, in addition, attract attention to themselves more than stone ones. Meteorites can be found 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 that 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 the discovery of a meteorite, if one occurs, it is necessary to make a detailed description of the 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. 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. The largest meteorite 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 strong 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 of hot water burst out. The consequences of the meteorite fall are still felt by local residents.
Most likely, the celestial body contained toxic substances; 1,500 people living in the area closest to the crash site suffer from 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, none of local residents was not 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. Most often, stone meteorites fall on Earth; their share is almost 93% of all types of celestial bodies that fell on the planet. 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. Now 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 them 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 one today known to science meteorites is called Goba. Iron Giant Volume 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 scientific research, erosion and vandal invasions. 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 not. 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 of this were colossal, and no remains or debris were ever found on Earth. 
Meteor shower, USA, 1833
On an autumn November night in 1833, a meteorite rained over the United States. For 10 hours, meteorites of various sizes fell on the surface of the Earth, total number 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
