Meteorite impacts

Part of Hall of Meteorites.

meteorite impacts section

Countless impacts continue to shape Earth, other planets and moons in our dynamic Solar System.

February 12, 1947, 10:30 a.m.: A woodsman stacking logs in the frozen forest of eastern Siberia stopped working when he noticed a sudden flash of light, brighter than the Sun, streaking across the sky. Dozens of others in the area saw the flash too, and they described a huge fireball that exploded, bursting into smaller pieces that fell to Earth with cracking and roaring sounds. A huge, red-tinged column of dark dust hung in the sky for several hours, marking the fireball's path.

An iron meteorite weighing perhaps 100 tons, more than three times as much as Ahnighito—displayed at the center of this hall—had exploded in the dense lower layer of Earth's atmosphere. It shattered into tens of thousands of fragments that crashed into the thick forest, tearing apart and uprooting trees and digging hundreds of craters in the snowy ground.

D.1.1.2. Illustration Sikhote-Alin Impact Site.jpg
cross section of two craters, one deep with big pieces of meteorite in the bottom of it and a wider one with smaller pieces of meteorite.
As geologists searched for meteorites by digging beneath craters at Sikhote-Alin, they noticed something peculiar. Many fairly large meteorite samples were buried at the bottom of small craters measuring no more than two meters (6.5 feet) across. Larger craters, on the other hand, usually contained many very small meteorite fragments.But the researchers knew that larger impacting meteorites must have made the larger craters. These meteorites apparently landed with so much kinetic energy that they shattered into tiny fragments. Smaller impactors were less likely to break apart because they hit with less energy.
©AMNH
D.1.2.3. Sikhote-Alin stamps.jpg
© AMNH/D. Finnin
D.1.2.2. sikhotte-alin_crater.jpg

In This Section

Exhibit Sikhote-Alin   Exhibit Earth Impacts During Earth's 4.5 billion year history, countless meteorites have crashed onto the planet. Many of these impacts initially left... Exhibit Meteor Crater Shocked, Melted And Pulverized Rocks Helped Prove That Meteorite Impacts Can Make Craters. Exhibit On The Moon The craters on the Moon are a historical record of asteroid impacts—on Earth as well as the Moon.