A big flash of light sweeping over the sky, and a BIG BANG.

Tonight July 25. 2021 I saw a sudden flash of light from my bedroom window. It was about one hour after midnight, and the flash was followed by a sound reminding me of thunder or a bomb explosion.

First I thought it could be thunder, but the sky was all clear, and the weather forecast did not mention rain or thunderstorm. Then I thought it had to be a bomb. ( In Oslo we had right-wing terrorism ten years ago that almost destroyed all the government buildings in the city).

A large meteoritis hit an area south of Oslo.

The answer was neither thunder nor a bomb explosion but a meteorite visible almost all over the country. It hit the atmosphere at a speed of 15-20 km per second, and moved from northeast to southwest, finally crashing somewhere near Oslo, called Lier. At this moment hundreds of people are searching for it in this area. https://www.vgtv.no/222144?jwsource=cl

 Into the comet’s tail.

In 2016,  a  heavy storm of comet debris reached the earth’s atmosphere. These particles came from a comet called Swift – Tuttle.

And when such particles whizz past the earth and hit the atmosphere, they begin to glow and burn. You can see them  every year in August as bright streaks and fireballs in the clear night sky.  That summer it happened from Tuesday 9. to Saturday 13. of August. Approximately bout 155 strikes an hour if you count them.

Strikes( long exposed) seen as crossings over the circumpolar stars

The event in the constellation Perseus is an annual happening. But back in 2016, it was more spectacular than usual. The reason for this is planet Jupiter. Jupiter has enormous gravitational power over the comets and their tails. In 2016 Jupiter was able to displace comet Swift-Tuttle’s awesomely long tail of dust. That meant the comet would wag its most dense part of the tail on us.

Illustration of a comet tail with meteorite-material, and earth

“Stardust”

Most of the particles coming from comets and meteorites are small. Almost like dust when they land on the earth. The history of meteorites also tells us about the dramatic exceptions from this rule.

Forest  around Tunguska in 1919, after meteorite explosion 1908

The Tunguska disaster

Many of us have heard about the Tunguska meteorite in Siberia in 1908:     “On June 30, 1908, a 100-foot-wide (30 m) asteroid, or piece of comet debris, exploded 5 miles (8 km) above an uninhabited area of Siberia near the Tunguska River. A blinding flash was followed by two explosive booms and a prolonged thunderous rumbling heard by people fortunate to live hundreds of miles from ground zero. The shock wave from the explosion leveled millions of trees, covering an estimated 800 square miles (2,000 square km). No meteorite, definitively associated with Tunguska, has ever been found.” (R. Curran 2012)

Where did it go then? Some would say the explosion over the ground was so powerful that the debris all ended in invisible dust. Others will claim that the area in the wilderness was inaccessible. Both might be right.

Local population scared to silence

I read something interesting five years ago.  The special feature of this event was that the local population did not want to tell about it. They thought the disaster was God’s punishment for something they had done wrong. So mapping and images of the radial devastation of the forest at Tunguska were seriously delayed.  Not until nineteen years later scientists and photographers were granted permission to visit the area. Perhaps the bigger meteorite particles like ironstones, chondrites, and the hexadrites were hidden or used by the locals.  Curran writes about something like that from Greenland:

• “In 1818, explorer John Ross noticed that natives in Greenland possessed unusual knives, harpoon points, and engraving tools. Testing revealed they were made from iron meteorites. Five expeditions from 1818 to 1885 failed to locate the parent object, since indigenous people would not reveal its location. Finally, in 1894, in exchange for a gun, a native guided Lt. Robert Peary’s expedition to Cape York. There they found three meteorite fragments (“The Tent”, “The Dog” and “The Woman” separated by roughly four miles (6 km).

There was much superstition at that time. Especially regarding objects falling  down from heaven.

President Jeffersons denial

Even American President Thomas Jefferson was in denial of the reality of meteorites. When two professors of Yale that had done research on American meteorites, published their findings in 1906, he tried to stop it.

American President Thomas Jefferson

Earth gets heavier and heavier.

When I first read about meteorites I was 10 years old. There was a picture in an old book of a big hole in a roof and a woman with a scar from a burn over her belly as big as a baseball. The event happened in 1954, Alabama, US.

    Meteorite stricken woman hit in her Alabama home in 1954

Wow, is that possible I said to myself. Falling stars, we called them at that time. Then it happened here too, in Norway 2006, and in my neighborhood in Oslo 2012, – two rocks.

Astronomers analyzing the roof of an old woman’s house in Oslo, where the meteorite debris struck.

2013: The Chelyabinsk 10.000 tons stone

And the 15 of February 2013 an enormous explosion occurred over Chelyabinsk, Russia: The meteorite was about 55 feet in diameter, weighed around 10,000 tons. It was made from a stony material, scientists said.  These three facts making it the largest object to hit the Earth in more than a century. Data from a global network of sensors indicated the following: The disintegration of the Russian fireball unleashed nearly 500 kilotons of energy. That is more than 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

      The Fireball at Chelyabinsk in the morning of February 15. 2013

It is the largest reported meteor since the one that hit Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908. R. Curran describes the phenomenon like this:

• “Residents of Chelyabinsk, Russia were ready to begin a day of work when a colorful fireball appeared in the sky followed quickly by a flash. Within moments the shockwave from the explosion reached the ground, shattered windows in hundreds of buildings, collapsed a factory roof, and sent 1,500 people to the hospital. Scientists announced that an asteroid—the size of a school bus—had exploded 18 miles (30 km) above Chelyabinsk.”

One part of the Chelyabinsk meteorite burning heavy before it disappears

Fact: The phenomenon of “falling stars” makes us heavier every day. The weight from this debris, small or big each year, ranges from 37,000-78,000 tons.

The Universe’s own sperm

What had life on earth been without these small and in particular the big crashes from comets, asteroids, and meteorites throughout the times?

In the earth’s childhood was no biological life existed yet, astronomers and biologists now assume that these collisions were absolutely necessary to start the processes of primitive life.

“When you wish upon a star“

So look up at the sky tonight! If you’re lucky you’ll see a specimen of the “universe’s own sperm” that once fertilized our mother Earth.  If you’re romantic you could also make a wish, and hope that it comes true.

 This photo is probably of what we might call ” Sperm of the Universe”