meteorite

Ancient Egyptians wore space bling made from meteorites

There have been plenty of far-out theories about otherworldly alien visitations of the ancient Egyptians, especially those involving aliens building the pyramids. That's all a load of bunk, but at least now we have a real scientist-approved story involving ancient Egyptians and objects from space.

Strings of unusual iron beads were excavated from a burial site near Cairo in 1911. The beads date back to around 3300 BCE. It took more than 100 years for scientists to conclusively sort out what they are made from. As it turns out, they are fashioned from meteorites.… Read more

Relive Earth's wild history of meteor strikes

Aside from death and taxes, there's another thing certain in life: meteors. To get a historical perspective on just how many dazzling space rocks have fallen through our skies in recent times, peep at Carlo Zapponi's visual graph called Bolides, which puts meteor strikes in a chronological view.

Inspired by the Greek word bolis (missile), Bolides features data from a range of historical meteor records, ranging from MetBase to London's Natural History Museum catalog of meteorites, and displays the data in a way that makes you want to click around and explore. … Read more

Crave Ep. 110: Prevent a hangover with the world's first 'sober pill'?

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Cheers! Scientists have created what may be the world's first pill that can make you sober if you've gone a little too far with the booze. Russian meteorite fragments go up for sale online, as do Milla Jovovich's shorts. And later this year a man will have surgery to attach a bionic hand that can feel touch sensations. … Read more

Russian meteorite fragments pop up for sale online

Capitalism is certainly alive and well in today's Russia, as demonstrated by the growing number of attempts to cash in on the recent and much-recorded (thanks to the help of ubiquitous Russian dashboard cams) meteor strike in Siberia.

The meteor that broke up over the city of Chelyabinsk while also producing a window-shattering sonic boom and momentarily outshining the sun has become a cash cow for many opportunistic folks now offering up purported fragments of the space stone on eBay and elsewhere online.… Read more

Map shows every meteorite impact since 2,300 B.C.

Want to find out where every meteorite recorded since 2,300 B.C. has fallen on Earth? A new map will help you out.

Javier de la Torre, co-founder of software companies Vizzuality and CartoDB, has posted a heat map showing where the meteorites have fallen over the last several thousand years. According to The Verge, which first reported on the map and spoke with de la Torre, 34,513 individual impact points are recorded on the map.

De la Torre claims that it took him only 30 minutes to record the impacts. He used OpenStreetMap, a crowdsourced platform, for the map, and then input impact sites from data collected by the Meteorological Society.… Read more

Russian meteorite: The conspiracy theories

A good hearty conspiracy theory can shine a sharp light on two of humanity's most enduring traits.

One, of course, is humanity's boundless imagination. The other is humanity's essential suspicion of humanity.

So while you might be deeply immersed in Bill Nye's explanation of the Russian meteorite, those with darker sensibilities have filled the Web with their fears and hauntings about the phenomenon.

There are few nations with greater awareness of dark sensibilities than Russia. The fact that there seems to be little evidence of meteorite fragments on the ground has encouraged some Russians to offer their own suspicions.… Read more

Google removes asteroid doodle before you can see it

It's not easy to celebrate a near miss on the day of an actual hit.

Google discovered this yesterday. The company was very keen to offer another of its highly involving doodles for your weekend enjoyment.

Its nerd-leaning artists thought it might be fun to create a little something that cheered the fact that Asteroid 2012 DA14 wasn't going to strike Earth and create havoc.

Sadly, an ill-timed meteorite did strike Earth and create havoc.… Read more

The 404 1,209: Where we chalk it up to cosmic coincidence (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Fiery meteor explodes over Russia's Ural Mountains; 1,100 injured as shock wave breaks windows.

- Watch asteroid 2012 DA14 fade out via streaming video.

- Iceland wants to ban Internet porn.

- Chubby Checker in a twist over an old app.

- One Direction's new toothbrush streams sound vibrations through your teeth.… Read more

Injury count rises for Russian meteorite

The latest tally of meteorite-related injuries in Russia's Chelyabinsk region has reached about 1,000 -- most suffered from shards of glass that went flying when the meteor entered the atmosphere and sounded loud, window-shattering booms on its way to the ground earlier today.

Today has been an unusually active day for news involving big rocks from space. While the large Asteroid 2012 DA14 is passing closer to the surface of Earth than many of our satellites, an apparently unrelated meteorite streaked across the early morning Siberian sky, damaging buildings and thus injuring people in its path.

A Russian … Read more

Meteorite suspected of causing explosions, damage in Russia

A meteorite may have caused a series of powerful explosions about 900 miles east of Moscow that injured more than 100 people on Friday, Russian emergency officials say.

Witnesses said one meteorite damaged a zinc factory in the Chelyabinsk region and disrupted the city's Internet and mobile service. The blast reportedly set off a shock wave that broke nearby windows and set off car alarms.

"It was definitely not a plane," emergency officials told Reuters. "We are gathering the bits of information and have no data on the casualties so far."

Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim … Read more