The fall of a meteorite striking, very short, unclear and always unexpected phenomenon, the frightful and the worship of the unenlightened observer. Therefore, descriptions of the meteor downs are available in many annalistic sources. The oldest of these may be found in Chinese manuscripts and dated G. 654 BC Registered they Greek, Roman and medieval historians. Of course that fell from the sky stones were venerated as saints and served as a subject of religious worship. However, meteoric iron, which is sometimes found people in ancient times, was used for the manufacture of various tools, and it can be assumed that the first iron known to mankind had a cosmic origin.
In ancient Russian Chronicles mention of the fall of the meteorite belongs to 1091 g (Laurentian chronicle). Among the most significant are in the fall Veliky Ustyug (1290 g), Veliky Novgorod (1212 and 1421), near the village of New Ergi (1662). In Chronicles the fall of the meteorite was considered to be bad omen. Repeated attempts were made search of fallen stones in the ground drops, but they were unsuccessful. Still on site Russia has not found any meteorite whose fall was recorded in the chronicle sources.
But other meteorites over the past 350 years has collected a lot and most of them is found in the meteorite collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the oldest and richest in world's largest collections of meteorites. The collection contains about 180 domestic and over 800 foreign meteorites (more than 16 thousand samples) of almost all types of 45 countries of the world.
Part of this collection is exhibited in the Mineralogical Museum. A. E. Fersman RAS, where on the wall hangs a map of the country, which marked the places of the finds meteorites. An interesting detail is beyond the Urals almost all the finds are concentrated along The TRANS-Siberian railway. This does not mean that meteorites fell near line; just find them where people live. But they fall more or less evenly across the planet. In some places, such as in certain areas Antarctica, they can concentrate for thousands of years and they are well seen on the background of ice and snow. Due to this, Japanese and American scientists has collected thousands of samples of meteorites.
Fig. 42. Meteorite Sikhote-Alin in the Mineralogical Museum. A. E. Fersman. The largest specimen from found - 1745 kg
Noticeable they and sandy deserts. So, collectors, moving on cars through the deserts of Oman, find hundreds of meteorites, including rare samples from the moon and Mars. Searchers sometimes find heavy rusty stones, but not it may be a meteorite.
Hot summer 2000 Oleg Guskov, returning home after collecting fungi in and around the village of Dronino Kasimov district, Ryazan region, noticed jutting out from the ground a rusty piece of metal. With a knife to get him not managed. Oleg thought it might be a meteorite, went home for the shovel and wheelbarrow and brought it home. Two years iron the piece lay in the garden, while came to his hands. Oleg Nikolaevich sawed off a piece and took it to the lab meteoritic GEOKHI RAS to verify his assumption. Examination showed that doroninskoe iron, indeed, is of meteoritic origin. Made an expedition with the help of a metal detector found more than 250 pieces of the meteorite weighing about 550 kg. This is the third iron rain, discovered on the territory of Russia for the last 250 years.
Fig. 43. O. N. Guskov found with the meteorite Dronino
Collected meteorite fragments strongly oxidized, indicating a significant the age of the fall. Kasimov (originally Meshchersky Town, where died Prince Alexander Nevsky) was founded in 1152 by Yuri Dolgoruky and located just 20 km from Tonina. The fall of this meteorite (when you log in the sights he had a mass of not less than 1.5 t and the energy of about 100 tons of TNT) - a phenomenon impressive and surely it would have been noticed by the local population not only in Kasimov, but in Ryazan, Murom and Vladimir, and would have been reflected in Russian Chronicles or later Chronicles. However, no written news about it the event still could not be found. Thus, we can assume that, most likely, this fall happened before the twelfth century is almost deserted terrain.
Meteors fall at any time of day and year. Small particles about the size of a grain of sand to earth not fly, burning in the atmosphere. Larger, sometimes reaching several tons, are rapidly moving in the sky a ball of fire, called the race car. For the car there is the fire tail. Often at the end of the movement of the car splits in the air and spilling a cascade of sparks in the fiery rain the sight is awesome, especially at night. Very bright fireballs are visible day and even in full sunlight.
The author was fortunate to witness the arrival of such a bright meteor in the Urals in the summer of 1949 G. a ball of Fire the size of the moon silently flew almost over my head with North-East to South-West and disappeared over the horizon. It lasted about 5-7 seconds. On the cloudless sky was left wide dark trail. I do not recall that I heard the sound explosion.
While moving in the atmosphere with the space velocity of the surface of the meteor the body is heated to several thousand degrees. Small particles burn, not touched the ground. Big body, more than 100 g, are experiencing a sharp slowdown in lower dense layers of the atmosphere at the altitude of 10-20 km away. This part of the trajectory called the delay. Here the meteorite cools down, the glow ceases, and he falls to the ground under the action of gravity. Almost vertically. Fallen the meteorite gets the name of the nearest settlement or other geographic object. Often large meteorites due to the air pressure on a height of 10 - 15 km split into hundreds and thousands of pieces and fall to the ground in the form fiery rain.
Meteor showers are scattered over the surface of the soil at the site with approximately elliptic shape (ellipse scattering).
Down, being warm or cold, but not hot, as many think.
In rare cases, when the meteor body has a large mass, it does not have time to slow down the air and space velocity hits the ground, forming meteor crater.
On Earth there are about 140 impact craters with a diameter of up to 200 m formed downs cosmic bodies. In principle, there should be a lot more, like on the moon. However, unlike The moon on the Earth's geological processes are more intense and erase the traces cosmic bombardment on our planet. In the collision of cosmic bodies with The earth giant, the kinetic energy of the impactor (cosmic body) is spent on the formation of the crater cavity, as well as for crushing, melting and evaporation the substance of the target. These processes lead to the formation of unusual rocks (so called impactites that exhibit the characteristic signs of impact the target material of high pressures and temperatures.
Fig. 44. The fragmentation of a large meteorite in the atmosphere
Small, with a diameter of 350 m, lake Smartage located in Shatura district, approximately 140 km East of Moscow, is markedly different from many round lakes in the suburbs of unusual depth (40 m) and a pronounced shaft, surrounding this lake. Based on these signs and Recalling data N. And.Owl from Mr. Roshal, Estonian scientists Yu Questline and K. H. Mel - La in 1985 expressed the idea that the lake Smartage - meteorite crater.
Recently the staff of the laboratory of meteoritic Institute of Geochemistry and analytical chemistry them. V. I. Vernadsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences conducted a study of the mysterious lake and confirmed that the lake is indeed a crater formed when the meteor hit. According to preliminary data, the crater was formed about 10 thousand years ago. Thus, the lake Smartage may be closest to Moscow meteor crater, a unique monument of nature.
All meteorites are divided into three main classes: iron, zhelezorudnye and stone. Each class is subdivided into types. The most rare stony iron meteorites, which are divided into two groups: masasi - darity and pallasites. Stony meteorites are divided into two subclasses: chondrites and achondrites. Iron meteorites by their structure are divided into three groups: hexahedra- you octahedrite and ataxite most Of them rare hexa - egrity.
The vast majority of meteorites fall to Earth from the asteroid belt. At the same time among meteorites have been identified meteorites from the moon and Mars. On the market these meteorites are the most expensive (from 2,000 to 10,000 dollars per gram).
In character discovering all the meteorites are divided into falls and finds. Downs considered the meteors observed by eyewitnesses and collected immediately after the observed deceleration of the meteor body in the earth's atmosphere. In case meteor showers new samples are usually for a long time after fall.
Stone meteorites are the majority (92.8 per cent) falls, and basically it the chondrites (85,7%). The achondrites, iron and stony iron meteorites are at 7.1%, 5.7% and 1.5% respectively.
Finds are meteorites, which fall was not observed. Their belonging to the meteorites is based on their material composition.
The percentage of stony meteorites among the findings are markedly lower than among the downs, because they are often difficult to distinguish from rocks of terrestrial origin. Iron meteorites are easier to identify and can be found using a metal detector not only on the surface, but at a considerable depth.
Outside all the meteorites have a so-called crust melting is thin the solidified fusion layer thickness of 0.1 to 1.0 mm. the broken stone Fresh meteorites are usually in grey, with magnification, one can see that the structure of the meteorite contains all over a fine grained mass of small (less than 1 mm in diameter) balls, called chondrules, which is primarily silicate composition. Therefore, these meteorites are called chondrites. In terrestrial rocks Hendry absolutely not Dating. Therefore, the presence of chondrules is a reliable indication of the stone is a meteorite.
When working with a metal detector, sometimes there are so-called hot rocks, which give the same clear message as the metal object, but unlike the last signal disappears with a small search coil is lifted from stone. In detail, these stones nobody investigated. In some cases, it rocks contains inclusions of magnetite (iron ore), chalcopyrite (copper ore) or other conductive or magnetic minerals. Sometimes these stones can to be attracted by a strong magnet. Pay attention to their shape, surface, cleavage, and possibly among them will be a meteorite. A discovery of a new meteorite - case case and great luck. Treasures, for example, occur much more frequently. However in Russia there are several places where dropped at the time of a major meteor showers and find the meteorite samples is quite real.
The Sikhote-Alin meteorite. Octaedra. This is a very rich iron meteorite the rain fell February 12, 1947 in Primorsky Krai. Fell more than 100 tons of material from which it was collected about 27 tons and entered the collection of the Academy of Sciences RAS.
The Meteorite Ching. Ataxic. Found in 1912, when gold prospecting in the bed of the stream chinge in Uriankhai district in Tuva. Collected more than 250 kg of material. Trimming meteorite can find so far. A large number of meteoric iron was used by prospectors for forging nails, staples and other small items artisanal goods. So search these products is also of interest.
A Meteorite Dronino. Found in 2001, near D. Dronino in Kasimov district The Ryazan region. Collected about 550 kg by specialists of the laboratory of meteoritic Vernadsky Institute and about the same enthusiastic search engines. The meteorite is highly oxidized quickly and continues to corrode in air.
Meteorite Brand. The pallasite. Found in 1807 in the Gomel region. Scientists expressed on a geographical basis conjecture that the events described in 1091, in the Laurentian chronicle, associated with the fall of large pallasite Bra - gin. Collected more than 1000 kg. Samples of the meteorite found so far, though the area of the fall is closed due to the Chernobyl accident zone.
The Tsarev Meteorite. The chondrite. December 6, 1922 "Giant falling star" in Astrakhan and Tsaritsyn provinces caused panic among the local population. However, scientists have been unable to find traces of a meteorite. Only in 1968 while plowing fields of the farm "Leninsky" Volgograd region many unusual stones became cause damage to the plows. It took another 11 years before in the Committee on meteorites from the welder B. G. Nikiforova came to sending samples of these stones Meteor shower Tsarev - the largest stone meteorite fall on the territory of the USSR. Collected more than 1200 kg But, certainly, it is possible to find many more samples. The search, however, is complicated by strong mineralization in this soil area.
May day village. The chondrite. Fell on December 26, 1933, in the Vladimir region at Yuriev-Polsky, extended fireworks cascade of sparks and started on tens of kilometers downdraughts and long smolkowski drone. In April may the fields collected dozens of meteorites with a total weight of 49 kg. you Can try look for additional instances.
Search iron meteorites and pallasites presents no special difficulties in technically, since even cheap devices react to them enough clearly. However, large specimens are found at a depth of 1-1,5 m and their discovery is required to apply the delicate instruments - Spectrum XLT, mxt, Tejon, "cornet" and others. When you search for stony meteorites, iron content in which slightly, you must use only sensitive devices, it is also desirable to have a strong magnet that attracts almost all stone meteorites.
What to do if you have found a stone, which I suspect meteorite? Laboratory meteoritic GEOKHI RAS in this case recommends the following.
"You can break off a small piece of sample (10 - 15 g) and send to the address lab simple packet. To the package to attach the letter, consisting of the following items:
- your surname, name, patronymic and the address where we can contact You,
- a description of the circumstances of the discovery (e.g., "saw a flight of bright bolide, the alleged crash site found an unusual stone" or "when plowing fields found heavy magnetic rock, which caused me to have a suspicion that it meteorite";
- the date of discovery;
- the place of discovery and the nearest regional centre;
- the weight of the sample;
- its properties (color and surface spalling, rock structure, magnetist, the presence of metallic inclusions, etc.);
- desirable picture of the sample.
When you receive Your parcel, we undertake to carry out qualified free analysis of the submitted sample and in a very short time to announce it the results, even if it is a meteorite.
If You do have a meteorite, then we will be guided by the rules established by the International meteor Nomenclature Committee, and reciprocal arrangements
According to the rules of Nomenclature Committee for registration in the International catalogue of meteorites requires that 20% of the sample were in scientific institution. In our case, the laboratory meteoritic Institute of Geochemistry and analytical chemistry. V. I. Vernadsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences is the custodian of the Meteor the collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences and, thus, corresponds to the specified request. These 20% can be considered as a fee for painstaking analysis, necessary for the classification of the meteorite, and it is registered in the International meteor directory.
The remaining 80% You have the right to dispose of at their discretion. From our side we certainly would like to get the maximum mass of the sample, as any meteorite individual and carries a lot of interesting information about the processes that happened with our Solar system. Sadly, if even a fraction of it is lost to science. In Soviet times it was the norm to pay the man the finder of the meteorite, a monetary reward. In our transitional time target it funds not allocated, but we will try to reward the human desire to help science. I also wanted to note that reported in press fabulous prices on meteorites in a foreign market is not quite true. Yes, there is a very small number of very rare meteorites, appreciate private collectors. However, the majority of meteorites is of little value to the market, and it is unlikely that the possession of the meteorite will make the life of a wealthy man. And to sell the meteorite in our country is very difficult, this can only be done for abroad. Therefore, we offer You honest dialogue, in which we come to meet us all conditions.
Success.
The laboratory staff of meteoritic GEOKHI RAS".
The laboratory address meteoritic: Moscow, 119991, Kosygin str., 19; tel: (7-495) -939 Fax: (7-495) 938-20-54;
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You must have JavaScript enabled to view it. ".
In Soviet times the prize for discoveries of meteorites were paid regularly on the basis of different normative documents, such as order No. 13095 The CPC 12.05.41, orders of the USSR Council of Ministers No. 7501 from 4.04.52, the provisions on the Museum Fund of the USSR № 273 of 26.07.65, etc. the Size of bonuses, of course, differed. For example, for finding places observed the fall of the meteorite in Tsarev 1922 the Academy promised to pay 100 gold rubles. This place was found only in 1979, and the premium paid was 400 RUB.
In the years of perestroika payment meteor awards ceased. No money and no new finds of meteorites. In 2003, Academy of Sciences announced the resumption of the practice of awarding bonuses. This year we have paid two premiums for the find meteor shower Dronino at 30 and 10 thousand rubles.
Prize for the discovery of a new meteorite will be paid in case of transfer the main mass of the meteorite was found in the Meteorite collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences or assistance in collecting specimens of the new meteor shower. Laboratory meteoritic GEOKHI RAS records the fact of transfer of a meteorite in Meteorite collection RAS or assistance in their quest and seeks to award a bonus. The prize will be determined by the type of meteorite was found.
Used materials of the site www.meteorites.ru
Author: L. V. Bulgak