When you consider the Earths history stretching over billions of years, its clear that meteorite impacts, far from being unexpected, are just a normal part of the life cycle of our planet. But that is not how they seem to us. The Chebarkul meteorite

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(39) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

It came in in the daytime sky out of the Sun. Weve got telescopes looking out there for these objects, but they only work at night. Radar doesnt help either because to really use radar to find these objects above the atmosphere, you have to know exac

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(54) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Approaching from beneath the planet, asteroid 2012 DA14 passed inside the orbit of our geostationary satellites before heading off to the north. This asteroid had been successfully tracked for a year. And despite its proximity, scientists knew that i

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(39) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

An asteroid strike would create a huge explosion. NASA feared this might even be mistaken for a nuclear bomb. We wanted folks to know this was a natural event by Mother Nature rather than some sort of man-made event like a missile or something dreadf

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(32) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Comparing the effects of an airburst with a ground strike, it seems the Chelyabinsk got away lightly. Its estimated that the largest piece to hit the ground weighed 500 kilos, a fraction of the asteroids original mass of 7,000 tonnes. Now if a piece

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(43) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

There it is! Yep. Its about 90 kilometres up, at that stage, travelling at 17.5 kilometres per second. Using the different camera positions, scientists have pinpointed the exact position at which the meteor entered the atmosphere. And by tracking the

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(27) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

So was this a near miss for us? If the asteroid had been in a different part of its orbit, so it didnt hit this year but it hit next year, it would have still hit us on February 15th. But instead of coming in over Russia, it would have come in over t

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(39) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

On June 30th, 1908, a huge explosion tore through the forest of Tunguska, Siberia. It was 20 years before the Russians mounted an expedition to the site. What they found astonished them. 60 million trees across an area the size of London had been lev

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(43) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Most of the damage from an explosion like this is actually the blast wave. Its the very high winds. Mark created a simulation to see what size an asteroid would need to be to be able to generate such destructive power. In this simulation I include mo

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(29) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Down on the ground, the scale of impact is even more breathtaking.The crater is more than 1000 meters across and nearly 200 meters deep.The forces here were enoumous.The impact on this solid rock into this pulverized mochi,just bustled in your hand.Y

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(41) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

So this was serial number one. It was built during the Apollo time. I guess because they thought there would be several of them made, but this is the first one and the last one and is the only one like it in the world. This is NASAs Vertical Gun Rang

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(27) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Oh, perfect, perfect, perfect. Now were seeing the fireball come in, its brighter than the Sun and then, Kapow, it hits the surface. Jeez! This whole region, downrange, would have been incinerated. It would have been incinerated just by this plasma,

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(40) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Look at the size of this! This is magnificent! That is beautiful. This cave may be stunning, but it provides the evidence for one of the greatest catastrophes in the Earths history. And that water, its so clear! Lower the gear, please! Theres actuall

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(30) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

The meteorite was 15 kilometres across, enough to cause utter devastation across the whole planet. It exploded with a force of 100 million million tones of TNT. The blast sent a giant plume of vaporized rock out into space. A crater was punched 30 ki

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(39) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Luckily, the very biggest asteroids are few and far between. But there are still plenty of rocks out there that represent a significant danger to us. So, at the summit of an extinct Hawaiian volcano, Professor Nick Kaiser and his colleagues are searc

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(36) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

On 6th October 2008, asteroid hunter Richard Kowalski saw something that would change the assessment of threats presented by asteroid impacts. The night was proceeding normally and up on the screen came another asteroid. As I continued to make observ

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(23) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

But there is a downside to Jupiter. It can also deflect asteroids into orbits that cross the Earths path. The Chelyabinsk meteor appears to be one of these typical Earth-crossing events. The likelihood is that it was thrown out of its regular orbit b

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(43) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Well,the early reports are that it is an ordinary chondrite and that means it willbe similar to this one. So this is really exciting for us as scientists becausewe want to know how the planets formed, what was around before the planets, whatthe envir

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(44) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

Meteor strikes as big as this may be rare butscientists have a surprisingly detailed knowledge of what meteorites are andwhere they come from. Long before the meteorite reached its explosivefinale in full view of Chelyabinsks dash cams, it had a very

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(36) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年

By collecting and comparing meteorites, scientistshave been able to piece together a picture of how they form and these studieshave revealed some of the most remarkable rocks in the solar system. Few places in the world have got as many meteoritesas

发表于:2019-01-23 / 阅读(31) / 评论(0) 分类 探索与发现2014年