“Mr. Foilhead, I was wondering if you knew anything about meteors or asteroids that have fallen to earth in the past 50 years or so. I ask because you seem pretty informed on a lot of different things, and I'm doing a project for school, so I figured I'd see if there was anything you knew. ”
Now since a simple Google of the subject matter would provide far information than I could give, I can only assume the question has been asked to illicit an opinion as opposed to actual facts. This being a blog and blogs are mostly about people standing on a soap box giving their opinion to the world in general but then I am generalising like I always do. Whilst I am not an expert on the subject matter it will not stop me from using my intelligence and common sense to give a basic overview. Common sense seems to be at an all time low these days, I see it every day that curious inability to plug a tube into a round hole but I am digressing from the original subject.
Basic semantics and sizes: Meteoroids exist in space, when they broach the Earth's atmosphere they are called Meteors and if they ever impact the surface of the Earth then are called Meteorites. They range in size from that of a grain of sand to large boulders.
Origins: Meteors are said to be fragments of Comets and Comets come from the Oort Cloud which exists outside of our solar system at approx 3 light years in all directions.
Impacts in Recent History: Meteors hit the Earth every day and burn up in the atmosphere producing the phenomenon know as shooting stars, however some do get all the the way through. The most famous impact was the Tunguska event in the year 1908 which exploded in the air (still considered an impact) at a height of about 5 miles producing an explosive yield of about 15 megatones of TNT. There is some scientific debate about what actually exploded:
Mainstream Scientific Theories
A Meteoroid airburst is the leading scientific explanation evidence shows microscopic silicate and magnetite spheres in siftings of the soil, which later studies showed that the spheres contained high proportions of nickel relative to iron normally found in meteorites. Various other anomalies were found which is consistent with an impact event of a meteorite.
In 1930 a British astronomer came up with the theory that it was a small comet instead. A cometary meteorite, being composed primarily of ice and dust, could have been completely vaporized by the impact with the Earth's atmosphere, leaving no obvious traces. Remember when I said meteors to be fragments of Comets, which means the previous statement “ice and dust” to be somewhat mis-leading or is it both? Ice, Dust and rock? The comet theory maybe supported by glowing skies observed across Europe during the time of the impact. The comet's tail basically dispersing in the upper atmosphere.
Fringe Event Theories
The above theories are based upon facts that fit their theories whilst effectively being the same theory as I pointed out with regard to a meteor being a fragment of comets. The following theories are based upon pure fancy or facts not in evidence to suit theories:
A passing black hole: it must have been a small one, microscopic in fact and travelling very fast. Otherwise I suspect I wouldn't be writing this blog. This theory doesn't allow for the evidence found at the impact site or some similar exit explosion.
Antimatter falling from space: How was this antimatter contained before it entered our atmosphere and again it doesn't allow for the evidence on the site.
UFO Crash Site: This is of course my all time favourite, the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation say it happened: "...is absolutely convinced a spacecraft sacrificed itself to save the world." Smacks of a Doctor Who script written by Douglas Adams and reused by the same author in his book: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. UFOs are obviously designed never to land otherwise why do they always crash?
There are about 1000 other theories regarding this event which I'm sure you can research yourself, however they are in the event just theories. The mystery remains.
My Fringe Event Theory
A future event creates an echo in the past reverberating back and forth absorbing energy and matter as it goes, before it terminates in 1908 (Numerlogy of this number is oddly enough: 1+9+8 = 18, 1+8 = 9). A theory that fits the facts in evidence, did this event occur on the 9th February this year?
Events don't just stop happening...
Similar airburst events (about a dozen) have occurred since although nowhere near the scale of Tunguska event and either no remains were found or low amounts of material from the meteorite are found normally in grams.
Postcard Meteor Event:
Received a postcard in the snail mail today had a picture of a several geodes on it and the following code on the reverse: “atwemz oqzt”
This is precisely the sort stuff I wanted to hear about. Thank you, Foilhead!
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