Meteorite rain - fire arrows of heaven

Meteorite rain, this stream of fire from heaven, is one of the most beautiful, mysterious and romantic phenomena bestowed on us by a great nature. Secrets of small space bodies, with amazing regularity attacking our "blue ball", are imprinted on the pages of earthly history and immortalized in human myths and legends. But meteor shower sometimes pose a significant threat to the planet, which has repeatedly experienced the fall of meteorites, which caused the destruction of the apocalyptic scale. The question is not whether this will happen again, but in when exactly such a cataclysm will occur. And will the human race be ready to cope with its catastrophic consequences?

These questions can be fully answered by the messengers of the Universe - meteorites. They are the original "code of survival" for the human race. A meteor shower consisting of objects crossing not only the solar system, but also thousands and millions of light years of outer space, brings to Earth invaluable information about other worlds, enriches world science with new invaluable knowledge. Studying these "gifts of the universe" can give us a clue to the many mysteries of the universe and the place of our planet in it. Mankind has yet to decipher this message of the cosmos.

The Earth, like other planets, has systematically been subjected to "bombardment" of small space objects throughout its history. Often, their size is very small, and most of these "messengers of heaven", which constitute a meteor shower, do not reach the surface of the planet, burning in dense layers of the atmosphere. Which creates the so-called "falling stars" effect.

But the evolutionary history of the Earth also knew very tangible blows. Often the fall of meteorites had catastrophic consequences. On the body of our planet there are many "star wounds" - the huge craters formed as a result of such cosmic collisions. Once, even the fall of the meteorite in the area of modern central Mexico turned the earth's history back, destroying the dinosaurs (and changing the face and climate of our planet). If it were not for this epochal catastrophe, a person on Earth might never appear. Dominated at that time, giant reptiles simply did not allow the development of other highly organized forms of life.

Sixty-five million years ago the Earth was completely different. Then it was much warmer than now. Dinosaurs were the highest form of prehistoric evolution, which at one time descended into the forefront of earthly history, giving way to it for humanity and mammals. One single meteorite, coming to us from the dark cosmic depths, forever changed the course of earth history.

The asteroid belt, born two hundred million years before this epoch-making event, was the birthplace of this object, which played a key role in the life of our planet. Billions of huge stone fragments moved through the twilight of outer space in one direction, like cars on the autobahn. All - except for one gigantic stone block, going completely different diagonal course. It looked like an incredible eight-kilometer-wide trailer, suddenly blocking the highway. That's just moving this "caravan" with a speed of 38 thousand km / h. As a result of a collision with another asteroid, these two objects were broken into millions of fragments. But one fragment, which was more than ten kilometers in diameter, had a special destiny ...

He was soon destined to meet with the third, the only inhabited planet of the solar system, forever changing its history and the principles of evolutionary development. This "space rocket" was not so alien to the Earth, as it may seem. Like our planet itself, it consisted mainly of rock and water. More precisely, from the permafrost into which this life-giving liquid is transformed under the conditions of cosmic vacuum.

But inside the meteorite there was a chemical cocktail of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen - the key components of life. Such an object, apparently, laid the foundation of life on our planet, the crown of which at that time was dinosaurs. As we approached the Earth, the planet's gravity dispersed this "killer from outer space" to a speed of 80,000 km / h. The catastrophe was inevitable, especially considering the mass of the meteorite, which rushed to meet the Earth's surface. As is known, the mass multiplied by the acceleration is equal to the force.

When the meteorite entered the atmosphere, friction turned it into a fireball surrounded by a plume of plasma. Under the influence of an incredibly high temperature, a tremendous amount of molten fragments began to separate from it. Four minutes it took him to cross the Atlantic and attack the heads of unsuspecting dinosaurs. Thus, according to modern science, there was the most destructive and fateful meteor shower in the history of the Earth.