The meteor that streaked across the skies over Russia in a blinding fireball on Friday struck Earth's atmosphere with a force about 40 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb, Nasa scientists have said.

The 17 metre rock, said by Nasa to have a mass of 10,000 tonnes, plunged to Earth in the Urals region on Friday morning, causing shockwaves that injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes in an event unprecedented in modern times.

Nasa estimate that the energy released by the meteor's impact with the atmosphere was 500 kilotonnes, around 40 times the force of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Divers were this morning searching the Chelyabinsk region's frozen Lake Chebarkul for a fragment of the meteorite. No fragments have been found in the region so far - despite some 20,000 rescuers and recovery workers being dispatched to help the hundreds of people injured.

Scientists from Nasa, the US space agency, estimated that the amount of energy released from impact with the atmosphere was about 30 times greater than the nuclear bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II.

"We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average," said Paul Chodas of Nasa's Near-Earth Object Program Office.

"When you have a fireball of this size we would expect a large number of meteorites to reach the surface and in this case there were probably some large ones," he said in a statement published on the Nasa website.

The strike brought traffic to a halt in the industrial city of Chelyabinsk as residents poured out on the streets to watch the light show before hovering for safety as a sonic boom shattered glass and set off car alarms. Most of the injuries were caused by glass.

"We have a special team working... that is now assessing the seismic stability of buildings," Vladimir Puchkov, the Emergencies Minister, told residents as he inspected the damage in the city.

"We will be especially careful about switching the gas back on," he said in televised remarks.

The meteor explosion appears to be one of the most stunning cosmic events above Russia since the 1908 Tunguska Event in which a massive blast most scientists blame on an asteroid or a comet ripped through Siberia.

The drama in Russia developed just hours before an asteroid - a space object similar to a tiny planet orbiting the sun - whizzed safely past Earth at the unprecedented distance of 17,200 miles.

That put it closer to the ground then some distant satellites and sent off alarm bells ringing in some Russian circles about this being the time for joint global action on the space safety front.

"Instead of fighting on Earth, people should be creating a joint system of asteroid defence," the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee chief Alexei Pushkov wrote on his Twitter account late Friday.

"Instead of creating a (military) European space defence system, the United States should join us and China in creating the AADS - the Anti-Asteroid Defence System," the close ally of President Vladimir Putin wrote.

The US space agency said the 2012 DA 14 asteroid's passing was "the closest-ever predicted approach to Earth for an object this large."

Nasa estimated that a smallish asteroid such as the 2012 DA 14 flies close to Earth every 40 years on average while only hitting the planet once every 1,200 years.

Astronomers have detected some 9,500 celestial bodies of various sizes that pass near Earth.

Source: AFP

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What a week it's been for space-fans!

A fireball was spotted streaking across the skies above the Bay Area on Friday evening, within 24 hours of a meteorite strike in Russia and a record-close asteroid flyby. 

A bluish flash of light, lasting for about five seconds, appeared around 7:45 p.m. on the West Coast, NBC's Lori Preuitt reports. 

The bright light happens when the meteor burns up as it passes through Earth's atmosphere.  

Gerald McKeegan, an astronomer with the Chabot Space and Science Center, told the San Jose Mercury News that the fireball was a "sporadic meteor," a common event, but one that usually happens over the ocean where we can't see it.

The meteor was not connected to asteroid 2012 DA14, which came within 17,200 miles of Earth's surface on Friday afternoon.  

Watch the video from NBC:

View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com.

SEE ALSO: The Asteroid Nearing Earth Could Be Worth $195 Billion — Here's The Plan To Mine The Next One

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The bus-sized meteor that streaked overhead in Russia had a blast equivalent of approximately 20 atomic bombs, injured more than 1,000 people, and struck panic throughout Moscow, a city of more than one million residents.

Here are some more stunning estimates regarding the meteor:

•The space rock struck Earth's atmosphere with a force of about 300 kilotons, or 25 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

• The 55 foot-wide meteor was comprised mostly of iron, weighed about 10,000 tons, and was traveling 40,000 mph when it exploded, according to NASA.

• The shock waveshattered 50 acres of glass in the windows of more than 4,000 buildings in Russia's Chelyabinsk region during a frigid winter. Nearly 60 percent of the windows have reportedly been replaced.

• “The impact wave and blast damaged around 297 homes, 12 schools, a number of other social facilities, and some industrial sites,” according toRussian Minister of Civil Defence Vladimir Puchkov.

• About 1,200 people were injured — largely by flying glass — and 40 were still hospitalized as of Sunday.

• More than24,000 workers and volunteers— with"3,000 pieces of equipment and 8 aircraft at their disposal"— mobilized to the region to cover windows, gather food and make other relief efforts in the face of an estimated $33 million in damages.

• The meteor reportedly left a 20-foot-wide hole in Chebarkul Lake (about 50 miles outside the city), and Russian scientists say they've found fragments of it.

The aftermath of the extraterrestrial rock has attracted"meteor hunters"looking to cash in on the "once in a lifetime event." NASA said the meteor was the largest reported fireball since the Tunguska event in 1908.

SEE ALSO: Crazy Images Of The Meteor That Exploded Over Russia

SEE ALSO: There's A Reason Why The Russian Meteor Was Filmed By So Many People

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The hunt is on to find fragments of a 55-foot meteor that bust through Earth's atmosphere last week and broke up in the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia. 

The meteor's fiery explosion, which released more than 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, produced a shockwave that shattered windows, knocked out power and injured more than 1,000 people.  

The strike has also set off a rush to recover pieces of the space rock, which could could be worth thousands of dollars each. 

School children and villagers are raking through snow and ice collecting bags full of stones, The New York Times' Andrew E. Kramer reports. 

The meteorites — the part of a meteor that survives Earth's atmosphere and ends up on land — peppered the snowy landscape with tiny holes that are easy to spot.  

The black pebbles hold the promise of the a better life for the residents of a struggling industrial city, who are making sure to keep their treasure well-guarded. 

From the New York Times: 

With word of the rising prices rippling through the village, some women, looking with piercing, paranoid eyes at strangers, refused to speak about what their children might have found. Others expressed fear that the police would confiscate the stones — and in turn sell them.

Researchers from Ural Federal University in Yekaterinburg, Russia have found 53 fragments so far, ranging from .2 to .4 inches, The Wall Street Journal reports. No large pieces have been located yet. 

Divers also searched the bottom of a Russian lake for fragments, but didn't find anything. 

Meteorites don't just have a monetary value; they also provide valuable information about the origin of the meteor. 

"Each meteorite is a time capsule and space probe recording the history of our solar system from 4.5 billion years ago," Caroline Smith, curator of meteorites at London's Natural History Museum told the Wall Street Journal. "Whenever you get a new meteorite, you never know what you'll find."

SEE ALSO: Here's Why Astronomers Did Not Detect The Russia Meteor Ahead Of Time

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A meteor that exploded in the skies above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk alarmed villagers last Friday morning. 

As the meteor burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, it sent down a shockwave that broke thousands of windows and knocked out power. More than 1,000 people were injured, mostly from hurtling pieces of glass.

Scientists say it was impossible to detect the meteor because it came out of the daytime sky and telescopes can only see asteroids during the night.

Officials have estimated the damage at more than $33 million.  

A number of reporters were on the ground in the aftermath of the once-in-a-hundred-year event. They documented resident's reactions to the giant fireball and cleanup efforts.  

The meteor, the largest reported since one hit Tunguska, Siberia 1908, exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on Friday morning, Feb. 15, in that region.

It's trail was visible for about 30 seconds as it streaked through the atmosphere before it exploded in the air.

Villagers say they heard an enormous boom. This woman told "The New York Times"' Andrew E. Kramer that it sounded like bombs outside.

Source: The New York Times

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Promising he would "get to the [Chuck] Hagel stuff tomorrow,"Jon Stewart soothed Americans tuning into the Daily Show Tuesday night by reminding them that as bad as things might seem, at least the U.S. doesn't have meteors exploding in the sky or horse meat in its burgers.

It's been a tough few weeks for Americans, Stewart said. The economy is still stuck in a funk, President Barack Obama is "unsure whether he has the authority to target Americans" with drones, and Geraldo Rivera is thinking about running for Senate. But Stewart tried to cheer up Americans with a segment entitled, "We may be [expletive], but at least God isn't hurling rocks and loose horse meat at us!"

Stewart took on a blooming scandal in England over the horse meat found in burgers and Russians' jaded reaction to the meteor that exploded over the sky last week.

Watch the clip below:

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Meteor mania has taken over all corners of the Internet, following a string of close encounters and sightings of flying space rocks.  

Fragments from a bus-sized meteor that exploded in Earth's atmosphere rained down over an industrial Russian city last Friday.

Less than 24 hours later, an asteroid came within 17,200 miles of Earth, the closest approach for an an object of this size.

A day later, Bay Area residents reported seeing a fireball streaking through the sky.   

A map showing every meteor strike since 2,300 B.C. is now making the rounds. The map was created by Javier de la Torre, co-founder of data visualization company CartoDB.

De la Torre used data uploaded to the Guardian's website that originally came from the Meteorological Society. The data shows where actual meteorites, or impact craters from meteorites, have been found. The size of the circle corresponds to the size of the object and the color corresponds to the number of meteorites or craters in a given location. 

There are probably tons more out there that have fallen from the sky, but just haven't been found yet. 

You can view the interactive version here. It's cool because you can actually click on the circles to get more detail about the meteorite's composition, location, weight and the year it was discovered.   

The map includes more than 34,000 locations where there's evidence of a meteorite strike, according to Geek.com. 

It looks like the United States is a popular place!

SEE ALSO: Here's The Plan To Mind The Next Asteroid

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Meteorite hunters at the bottom of the world bagged a rare find this southern summer: a 40-pound (18 kilogram) chunk of extraterrestrial rock.

A team from Belgium and Japan discovered the hefty meteorite as the members drove across the East Antarctic plateau on snowmobiles. Initial tests show it is an ordinary chondrite, the most common type of meteorite found on Earth, Vinciane Debaille, a geologist from Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, said in a statement.

"This is the biggest meteorite found in East Antarctica for 25 years," Debaille said. "This is something very exceptional. When you find such a meteorite on Earth, it means that when it was in the sky, it was much larger." [Images of the Antarctic meteorite.]

The Russian meteor that burst into fragments above the Chelyabinsk region on Feb. 15 is also an ordinary chondrite, according to initial tests by Russian scientists.

Every year, scientists travel to Antarctica to search for meteorites. Their charred black crust stands out starkly in the white snow, and the cold, dry climate helps preserve any organic chemicals inside the rocks.

The expedition collected 425 meteorites in 40 days, with a total weight of 165 pounds (75 kg). Debaille said they may have found one Mars meteorite and one piece of the asteroid Vesta among the many discoveries.

The researchers canvassed the Nansen Ice Field, 86 miles (140 kilometers) south out of the International Polar Foundation's Princess Elisabeth station. The United States also sent scientists out on the polar ice to collect meteorites this season, from McMurdo Station on the opposite end of the continent.

Reach Becky Oskin at boskin@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @beckyoskin. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

• Extreme Living: Scientists at the End of the Earth
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The 10,000-ton meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere producing a sonic boom. It shattered into pieces between 18 and 32 miles above Chelyabinsk, to the east of the Ural Mountains in southern Russia.

Debris fell on the city, injuring around 1,000 people, damaging buildings and leaving a large hole in an ice-covered lake.

The spot could now feature in plans to capitalize on international fascination with the event and bring tourists to the city.

“Space sent us a gift and we need to make use of it,” Natalia Gritsay, a regional tourism official, told Bloomberg. “We need our own Eiffel Tower or Statue of Liberty.”

Ideas for possible tourist attractions include a “Meteor Disneyland”, an annual cosmic music and fireworks festival, and a pyramid with a beacon at its tip that floats on the lake.

At a recent brainstorming meeting, the city mayor, Andrei Orlov, also suggested creating a diving centre in the lake for tourists who wanted to search for pieces of the meteorite.

One local tour company, Sputnik, has already organized two summer tours of the city for Japanese tourists.

"One is a two-day tour to the impact site at Chebarkul, while the other includes city sightseeing and will last longer," the company manager Elena Kolesnikova said. "The price is around $800 (£530) per person, which includes a hotel."

Chelyabinsk’s museum has been quick off the mark and installed a Meteor Day exhibit as its main attraction, displaying a meteorite next to the front pages of international newspapers reporting the event.

Some of the one million residents initially thought the sound was caused by a plane crash but videos of the meteor were soon posted on the internet revealing the true cause.

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Shortly before 8 p.m. EST Twitter began lighting up with reports of a bright streak in the sky, which many believe was a meteor. 

Bloomberg News tweeted: "Reports of a possible seen on U.S. Eastern Seaboard; sightings from upstate New York to northern Virginia."

Eyewitnesses say the meteor was bright green or blue in color, according to NBC Washington.  

We haven't seen any visual confirmation of the meteor yet, but anyone who has photo or video of the observed bright streak can email dspector@businessinsider.com and we'll share it here. 

This picture of meteor seen over Maryland seems to be circling Twitter, but a reader tipped us off that it was indeed a fake that pops up as "Belize Meteor" on Google images. 

The reports come a little more than one month after a meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk Russia, creating a shockwave that blew out windows and injured nearly 1,500 people, mostly from flying shards of glass. 

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NASA official says flash of light reported across East Coast sky likely a 'meteor event'

NEW YORK (AP) — East Coast residents were buzzing on social media sites and elsewhere Friday night after a brief but bright flash of light streaked across the early-evening sky —in what experts say was almost certainly a meteor coming down.

Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environmental Office said the flash appears to be "a single meteor event." He said it "looks to be a fireball that moved roughly toward the southeast, going on visual reports."

"Judging from the brightness, we're dealing with something as bright as the full moon," Cooke said. "The thing is probably a yard across. We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the northeast."

He noted that the meteor was widely seen, with more than 350 reports on the website of the American Meteor Society alone.

"If you have something this bright carry over that heavily populated area, a lot of people are going to see it," he said. "It occurred around 8 tonight, there were a lot of people out, and you've got all those big cities out there."

Matt Moore, a news editor with The Associated Press, said he was standing in line for a concert in downtown Philadelphia around dusk when he saw "a brilliant flash moving across the sky at a very brisk pace... and utterly silent."

"It was clearly high up in the atmosphere," he said. "But from the way it appeared, it looked like a plane preparing to land at the airport."

Moore said the flash was visible to him for about two to three seconds — and then it was gone. He described it as having a "spherical shape and yellowish and you could tell it was burning, with the trail that it left behind."

"Set as it was against a cloudless sky over Philadelphia, it was amazing," he said.

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, agreed that the sightings had all the hallmarks of a "fireball." These include lasting 7-10 seconds, being bright and colorful, and seeming to cross much of the sky with a long stream behind it.

He said what people likely saw was one meteor — or "space rock"— that may have been the size of a softball or volleyball and that fell fairly far down into the Earth's atmosphere.

He likened it to a stone skipping across the water — getting "a nice long burn out of it."

Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society told USA Today "it basically looked like a super bright shooting star."

The newspaper reports that the sky flash was spotted as far south as Florida and as far north as New England.

Pitts said meteors of varying sizes fall from the sky all the time, but that this one caught more eyes because it happened on a Friday evening — and because Twitter has provided a way for people to share information on sightings.

He said experts "can't be 100 percent certain of what it was, unless it actually fell to the ground and we could actually track the trajectory." But he said the descriptions by so many people are "absolutely consistent" with those of a meteor.

___

Associated Press writer Norman Gomlak in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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Scientists may have discovered the first meteorite from Mercury.

The green rock found in Morocco last year may be the first known visitor from the solar system's innermost planet, according to meteorite scientist Anthony Irving, who unveiled the new findings this month at the 44th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. The study suggests that a space rock called NWA 7325 came from Mercury, and not an asteroid or Mars.

NWA 7325 is actually a group of 35 meteorite samples discovered in 2012 in Morocco. They are ancient, with Irving and his team dating the rocks to an age of about 4.56 billion years.

"It might be a sample from Mercury, or it might be a sample from a body smaller than Mercury but [which] is like Mercury," Irving said during his talk. A large impact could have shot NWA 7325 out from Mercury to Earth, he added. [10 Most Enduring Mercury Mysteries]

Irving is an Earth and Space Sciences professor at the University of Washington and has been studying meteorites for years. But the NWA 7325 meteorite is unlike anything found on Earth before,  he told SPACE.com.

Meteorites from Mars are imbued with some Martian atmosphere, making them somewhat simple to tell apart from other rocks. Space rocks from Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the solar system, are also chemically distinct, but NWA 7325 does not resemble any space rock documented by scientists today.

Irving thinks that the meteoritewas created and eventually ejected from a planet or other body that had flowing magma on its surface at some point in its history. Evidence suggests that the rock could have been formed as "scum" on the top of the magma, Irving said.

NWA 7325 has a lower magnetic intensity — the magnetism passed from a cosmic body's magnetic field into a rock — than any other rock yet found, Irving said. Data sent back from NASA's Messenger spacecraft currently in orbit around Mercury shows that the planet's low magnetism closely resembles that found in NWA 7325, Irving said.

Messenger's observations also provided Irving with further evidence that could support his hypothesis. Scientists familiar with Mercury's geological and chemical composition think that the planet's surface is very low in iron. The meteorite is also low in iron, suggesting that wherever the rock came from, its parent body resembles Mercury.

While Messenger's first extended mission just finished, the team has put in a request to continue researching the planet with the orbiter for the next two years. If the mission is extended until 2015, the science returned by the spacecraft could help further validate or invalidate Irving's ideas about the origin of the meteorite.Although finding meteorites on Earth that came from Mercury is less likely than finding Martian meteorites, it could be possible, Irving said.

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

• Mars Meteorites: Pieces of the Red Planet on Earth (Photos)
• Meteorite Buy or Sell: Expert Break Down of Alien Rock
• Latest Photos of Mercury from NASA's Messenger Probe

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NASA scientists watching the moon saw an amazing sight two months ago: An 88-pound boulder slammed into our satellite, causing a visible explosion that was 10 times bigger than any they had ever seen before.

These kind of impacts aren't rare — that's how all of the moon's craters have formed — but this was the biggest they've ever seen. The explosion on March 17 was the equivalent of five tons of TNT, and could have created a crater up over 60 feet wide.

Here's what it looked like:

According to NASA you could even see it from Earth:

Anyone looking at the Moon at the moment of impact could have seen the explosion--no telescope required.  For about one second, the impact site was glowing like a 4th magnitude star.

Ron Suggs, an analyst at the Marshall Space Flight Center, was the first to notice the impact in a digital video recorded by one of the monitoring program's 14-inch telescopes.  "It jumped right out at me, it was so bright," he recalls.

The researchers think that the impact is related to a meteor shower seen over Ontario around the same time.

“My working hypothesis is that the two events are related, and that this constitutes a short duration cluster of material encountered by the Earth-Moon system," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in the press release.

Here's a quick video of the impact (keep your eye near the bottom/right corner or you might miss it):

While the boulder was only about one foot to a foot-and-a-half wide, it was traveling about 56,000 miles per hour and because the moon has no atmosphere to slow these meteoroids down, the resulting impact is incredible.

The force of the meteoroid hitting the moon causes the rock to melt and release hot gasses, causing the glow.

See the ScienceAtNASA video below for more information:

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For 40 years, University of Minnesota professor Calvin Alexander has been contacted by people who think they've found meteorites.

They call, write, and come in to the lab of the curator of meteorites with rocks they think, or hope, are from outer space.

Over four decades, Alexander has seen about 5,000 "meteorwrongs" that turn out to be regular Earth rocks. Until now.

In April, Alexander was contacted by farmers Bruce and Nelva Lilienthal, who sent the professor photos of a peculiar stone they'd found a couple years ago while clearing their corn field in Arlington, Minn.

The rock, which is about 16 inches by 12 inches (40.6 centimeters by 30.5 cm) across, and about 2 inches (5 cm) thick, weighs a surprising 33 pounds (15 kg) — about three times more than a regular Earth rock of that size. Its weight, as well as its unusual flattened shape and rusty surface, immediately suggested it was special. "I said, 'That certainly looks like a meteorite, but I need to see it up close to tell for sure,'" Alexander recalled. [Gallery: See photos of the Lilienthals' meteorite]

On May 30, the couple brought their find to Alexander's lab and allowed him to chip 0.02 ounces (0.6 grams) off the edge of it for analysis under a scanning electron microscope. The rock was iron, and contained about 8 percent nickel — a telltale giveaway. Iron objects on Earth contain almost no nickel, but iron rocks from space are usually between 5 and 20 percent nickel. The microscope also revealed what's called a Widmanstätten pattern of nickel-iron crystals that's unique to meteorites.

To say that the revelation was welcome news would be a major understatement.

"I am about to retire at the end of next year, and this was the first real meteorite that's been brought in," Alexander told SPACE.com. "Yes, ma'am, I was excited. I am still excited."

Though they haven't spent decades waiting for something like this, the Lilienthals are coming to appreciate their find just as much.

"It's not something we were expecting to find, but now that we've found out what it is, it's been exciting to learn about it," said Nelva Lilienthal.

Her husband Bruce had come upon the rock two years ago during the annual spring field clearing, when the farmers comb over their land to pick up the many rocks that have been turned up from the frost over the winter.

"You pick up hundreds and hundreds of rocks," Bruce Lilienthal said. "You pick 'em up and you get your fields planted. When we found it, we thought it was kind of different and we put it aside."

The couple noticed the rock's unsettling weight and rare appearance, but didn't think too much of it at the time, and added it to their pile of interesting finds.

"At that point it was time to plant our fields again and we put it off until a rainy day," Nelva said.

Recently, they revisited the issue, and their son, who works for the University of Minnesota, made some inquiries at the school and was referred to Alexander.

Since the discovery of the rock's true nature, the object has taken on more importance.

"It's probably not the prettiest rock that we've got in the pile — it looks kind of like a burnt pizza — but I'm really liking it more," Nelva told SPACE.com. "With all this publicity, it's becoming a favorite."

The future for the space rock is unclear right now. Because it fell on the Lilienthals' property, it legally belongs to them. They may decide to hold onto their meteorite as a prized keepsake, or they may not.

"It's a novelty right now," Bruce said. "The university wants to do more tests on it, so we'll let them do more tests and then we'll decide if we want to sell it or keep it."

Alexander would love to be able to study the rock in detail. He's reasonably sure that the object is another piece of a meteorite that was found in a nearby field in Arlington in 1894 — the two rocks have similar shapes and nickel content. But to tell for sure, a larger chunk of the object would have to be cut off and examined.

The meteorite offers some tantalizing scientific possibilities, Alexander said. For one thing, he'd like to compare the weathering and rusting on the surface of this rock to the 1984 meteorite, which was buried for about 100 years less time before being found.

The meteorite also appears to belong to a rare class of non-magnetic meteorites that originated in melt pools on asteroids created by impacts of other rocks. Additionally, its flattened shape is rare, as most meteorites are roughly spherical.

"Both of those factors mean that it's potentially very scientifically interesting," Alexander said.

The Lilienthals, meanwhile, have a newfound interest in the rocks that turn up in their fields. If their meteorite is related to the 1894 find, it stands to reason there could be more fragments of the same meteorite out there.

"It's very possible there's some in there still underground, still in the field," Bruce Lilienthal said. At the very least, it's made their annual rock-picking-up duty a little bit more exciting, he said.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook& Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

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More meteorites have crashed into Earth than you expect, probably.

This interactive infographic, from designer Sebastian Sadowski, charts 100 years of meteorites, mapping them by where they fell and when.

You can explore the number of meteorites that fell in India over the past century, then see how that stacks up to Brazil.

Or, if you'd prefer, you can look at a specific timeframe, be it a year or 100 years (Mexico apparently had a run of meteorites falling in the late 1970s).

We've seen awesome meteorite visualizations before, but putting the meteorite strikes on a globe really shows how widespread they are.

In fact, it's hard to find a spot that hasn't been touched by meteorites at some point in the last century. For example: think you're safe on the 7,000-mile square island of New Caledonia? Nope. A tiny meteorite struck in 1936.

[visualizing.org]

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The amazing picture below shows the meteor that hit Chelyabinsk, Russia, on February 15. It was captured by the Meteosat Second Generation satellites and dug up from the archives by Simon R. Proud from the University of Copenhagen.

Proud published his images in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and says that the same method he used to find the pictures could be used in the future to find images of other meteors. Thanks to Wired Science's space photo of the day for calling our attention to these two awesome images.

SEE ALSO: Russians Thought The Meteor Was A Bomb Or Terrorist Attack

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August could be a banner month for skywatchers, weather permitting.

The August night sky stars the return of the potentially spectacular Comet ISON, as well as the annual Perseid meteor shower. The beloved Perseids rarely disappoint, and this year's performance could be especially dazzling.

"The moon will set before midnight on the peak nights of Aug. 11 and 12, meaning dark skies for prospective observers," SPACE.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao wrote in a story last week. [Best Stargazing Events of August 2013 (Sky Maps)]

This month also offers skywatchers good looks at Mercury, Venus, Mars and several other planets, some of which will line up with each other or the moon in impressive celestial displays.

Comet ISON shows itself

Comet ISON is a "comet of the century" candidate that could put on a stunning show when it makes a close pass by the sun in late November.

The icy wanderer, which was just discovered in September 2012, has been invisible in our skies for the last two months, masked by the glare of the sun. But it should start returning to view in the next few weeks.

"On Aug. 10, Comet ISON will be 18.1 degrees from the sun and will begin rising above the east-northeast horizon before dawn," Rao wrote earlier this week. (Your clenched fist held at arm's length measures about 10 degrees.)

"For mid-northern latitudes on the morning of Aug. 21, ISON will stand 6 degrees above the east-northeast horizon at the start of twilight," Rao added. "And by the end of August, the comet's altitude will double to 12 degrees by the time dawn begins to break, making it an easy target for skywatchers."

But it's not clear just what skywatchers will see, Rao and others stress. It's tough to predict the behavior of any comet, especially those (like Comet ISON) that are making their first trip to the inner solar system from the distant, frigid Oort Cloud.

ISON is slated to cross the solar system's "frost line"— the point at which a body's water ice begins to boil off into space — in the next few weeks. The comet could potentially brighten considerably when that happens, researchers say.

But the real action is expected around and shortly after Nov. 28, when ISON will skim just 724,000 miles (1.16 million kilometers) above the surface of the sun. If ISON doesn't break apart during its solar approach — a big if, experts stress — it could blaze incredibly brightly and go down in history as a truly great comet.

The year's best meteor shower

The Perseids are another skywatching highlight this month. This shower, which occurs when Earth plows through streams of debris shed over the years by Comet Swift-Tuttle, is widely regarded as the best of all the annual meteor displays in the Northern Hemisphere.

While the Perseids peak toward the end of next week, you don't have to wait until those dates to observe them.

"You can start watching a week or more before the peak nights of August 11-12 and 12-13, assuming you have a dark sky," Bruce McClure noted at Earthsky.org. "The Perseid shower is known to rise gradually to a peak, then fall off rapidly afterwards. So as the nights pass in the week before the shower, the meteors will increase in number."

The Perseids, so named because they appear to emanate from the constellation Perseus, often exhibit peak meteor rates of 50 to 100 per hour. The shower is also known for its fireballs — meteors that shine at least as brightly as the planet Venus.

Planets, too

The planet-watching will also be good this month, giving stargazers yet another reason to look up.

"Early in the month, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury line up in the eastern morning sky," narrator Nancy Calo from the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a video highlighting August skywatching. "Mercury slips into the horizon by mid-month, while Mars and Jupiter rise higher in the predawn sky."

Venus is visible as a bright "evening star," setting just after the sun, while Saturn sits low in the southwestern sky and sets about 11 p.m. local time.

Venus and the moon will dance together on Aug. 9, while Jupiter and Saturn take turns tangoing with Earth's nearest neighbor on Aug. 12 and Aug. 31, respectively. And August's full moon — usually called the Corn Moon, Sturgeon Moon, Red Moon, Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon — occurs on the 20th of the month.

Editor's Note: If you have an amazing picture of any night sky view that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

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Every August, just when many people go vacationing in the country where skies are dark, the best-known meteor shower, makes its appearance.

This year, the Perseid meteor shower is expected to reach its peak overnight on Monday (Aug. 12), and there are some key tips to keep in mind for your "shooting stars" viewing.

Peak activity for the Perseids is unfortunately predicted for the daylight hours across North America, so stargazers with clear skies are encouraged to seek out the meteor display during the pre-dawn hours of Monday and again during the early morning hours of Tuesday (Aug. 13). At these times, the absence of bright moonlight can maximize your chances of spotting a meteor. [See 2013 Perseid meteor shower photos by stargazers (Gallery)]

At mid-northern latitudes, moonset on Sunday evening (Aug. 11) occurs at about 10:15 p.m. local time and around 10:50 p.m. the following night. Since dawn doesn't break until around 4:30 a.m. local time that means there will be between five-and a-half to six hours of dark, moonless skies for the two best viewing nights for the Perseids.

Take full advantage of this year's favorable lunar circumstances. Next year, a bright waning gibbous moon will flood the after-midnight night sky with its light and seriously hinder the Perseids.

Perseids: the remains of a comet

We know today that the Perseid meteor shower is actually created by the remains of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. Discovered back in 1862, this comet takes approximately 130 years to circle the sun. And in much the same way that the Comet Tempel-Tuttle leaves a trail of debris along its orbit to produce the Leonid meteor shower of November, Comet Swift-Tuttle produces a similar debris trail along its orbit to cause the Perseids display. [Top 10 Perseid Meteor Shower Facts]

Every year during mid-August, the Earth passes near the orbit of Swift-Tuttle and crosses the comet's debris stream. The comet material left behind then ram's into our atmosphere at approximately 37 miles per second (about 133,000 mph/214,000 km/h) to create bright streaks of light in our mid-summer night skies.

Comet Swift-Tuttle made its most recent appearance more than 20 years ago, in December 1992. Its orbit is highly elongated and as such it takes roughly 130 years to make one trip around the sun.

For several years before and after its 1992 return, the Perseids were a far more prolific shower, appearing to produce brief outbursts of as many as several hundred meteors per hour, many of which were dazzlingly bright and spectacular. The most likely reason was that the Perseids parent comet was itself passing through the inner solar system and that the streams of Perseid meteoroids in the comet's vicinity were larger and more thickly clumped together, leading to brighter meteors as well as much-higher-than-normal meteor rates.

But now, with the comet now having retreated nearly 3.2 billion miles (5.1 billion km) back out into space, Perseid activity has returned to normal.

Perseid meteor clumps

A very good meteor shower will produce about one meteor per minute for a given observer under a dark country sky. However, any light pollution from city lights or moonlight considerably reduces the count.

The August Perseids are among the strongest of the readily observed annual meteor showers, and at maximum activity nominally yield 90 or 100 meteors per hour. However, observers with exceptional skies often record even larger numbers.

But while 90 to 100 meteors per hour correspond to at least one meteor per minute, keep in mind that this is only a statistical average. In reality, what usually is seen is what some have called, "the clumping effect." Sometimes you'll see two or even three Perseids streak across the sky in quick succession, all within less than minute. This is usually followed by a lull of several minutes or more, before the sky suddenly bears fruit once again.

When and where to look

Typically during an overnight watch, the Perseids are capable of producing a number of bright, flaring and fragmenting meteors, which leave fine trains in their wake. On the night of shower maximum, the Perseid radiant is not far from the famous "Double Star Cluster" of Perseus.

Low in the northeast during the early evening, it rises higher in the sky until morning twilight ends observing. Shower streakers appearing close to the radiant have foreshortened tracks; those appearing farther away are often brighter, have longer tracks, and move faster across the sky. About five to 10 of the meteors seen in any given hour will not fit this geometric pattern, and may be classified as sporadic or as members of some other (minor) shower.

Perseid meteor shower activity increases sharply in the hours after midnight, so plan your observing times accordingly. We are then looking more nearly face-on into the direction of the Earth’s motion as it orbits the sun, and the radiant is also higher up.

Making a meteor count is as simple as lying in a lawn chair or on the ground and marking on a clipboard whenever a "shooting star" is seen. Watching for the Perseids consists of lying back, gazing up into the stars, and waiting. It is customary to watch the point halfway between the radiant (which will be rising in the northeast sky) and the zenith, though it's all right for your gaze to wander.

Meteor counts should be made on several nights before and after the predicted maximum, so the behavior of the shower during off-peak nights can be determined. Usually, good numbers of meteors should be seen on the preceding and following nights as well. The shower is generally at one-quarter strength one or two nights before and after maximum.

A few Perseids can be seen as much as two weeks before and a week after the peak. The extreme limits, in fact, are said to extend from July 17 to Aug. 24, though an occasional one might be seen almost anytime during the month of August. [Early Perseid Meteor Shower Fireballs Seen by NASA (Video)]

No danger in watching

Many years ago, a phone call came into New York's Hayden Planetarium. The caller sounded concerned after hearing a radio announcement of an upcoming Perseid meteor display and wanted to know if it would be dangerous to stay outdoors on the night of the peak of the shower (perhaps assuming there was a danger of getting hit).

These meteoroids, however, are no bigger than sand grains or pebbles, have the consistency of cigar ash and are consumed many miles above our heads. The caller was passed along to the Planetarium's Chief Astronomer who commented that there are only two dangers from observing the Perseid meteor shower: getting drenched with dew and falling asleep!

August is also the month of "The Tears of St. Lawrence," which has a historic link to the Perseids.

Laurentius, a Christian deacon, is said to have been martyred by the Romans in 258 AD on an iron outdoor stove. It was in the midst of this torture that Laurentius cried out: "I am already roasted on one side and, if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other."

The saint’s death was commemorated on his feast day, Aug. 10. King Phillip II of Spain built his monastery place the "Escorial," on the plan of the holy gridiron. And the abundance of shooting stars seen annually between approximately Aug. 8 and 14 have come to be known as St. Lawrence's "fiery tears."

Whether you plan to make detailed meteor counts or just lie back and watch nature put on a show, there should be plenty to during the predawn hours of Aug. 12 and 13. As one long-time meteor enthusiast once noted: "Meteor observing is relaxing and enjoyable, potentially dramatic and just plain fun!"

Editor's Note: If you snap an amazing picture of the 2013 Perseid meteor shower or any other night sky view that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmer's Almanac and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

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That Chelyabinsk meteorite from earlier this year might have been a warning shot from space, astronomers this week warned. Scientists studying the dramatic event from earlier this year believe the space rock could signal a larger group—possibly up to 20 related asteroids—headed straight toward Earth. The more you know.

In the six months since the meteor tore through the Chelyabinsk sky, astronomers have learned—and continue to learn—quite a bit about the event. We already know the rock weighs around 10,000 tons, and traveled about 11 miles per second. We also know that it managed to create a shockwave that circled the Earth two times; the superbolide itself exploded with the force of 460 kilotons of TNT, injuring people, damaging buildings, etc. And that could be the start.

According to io9, Spanish researchers Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos (brothers) conducted a computer simulation in an attempt to find the meteor’s orbit path around the sun. The two were able to average the ten best possible orbits against real asteroids in NASA’s catalogue—the researchers found 20. The alleged matches are supposedly part of a larger family, which range in size from 16 to about 660 feet across—one of which is expected to fly by Earth in 2025.

While some of the asteroids could follow a path to Earth, researchers admit that gravitational pulls and other factors could cause an orbital drift, so they might not be a threat at all.

“Our calculations suggest a dynamical link between some of the candidates and the superbolide but, unfortunately, the current orbits of all the candidates are not reliable enough to claim a conclusive connection although the available evidence is certainly encourage,” the brothers said.

It hasn’t really been all that long since the Chelyabinsk event, and researchers are still sorting through the data. In the meantime, if you want to help NASA find and possibly redirect any future threats, you can do so until our eventual doom.

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The annual Perseid meteor shower is expected to peak on the morning of Monday, Aug. 12, between 3 and 5 a.m.  

The shower happens as Earth passes through a stream of debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. 

Most of the world, except for parts of Australia and Antarctica, will be able to see the shower.

If you live in North America, stargazers should be able to spot the shooting stars any time after dark, with NASA predicting up to 100 meteors per hour. 

NASA will also be live streaming the event from their sky-pointed cameras at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The broadcast starts at 9 p.m. EDT. 

Live streaming video by Ustream

If you take awesome pictures of the Perseid meteor shower, send them to dspector@businessinsider.com and we'll share them here.

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