How much bad luck would you need for a meteorite to strike your property? According to experts, the answer is “a lot,” but if history teaches us anything, it’s that it’s not an impossible event. Over the past 200 years, dozens of incidents have been recorded involving space rocks playing target practice with houses, cars, mailboxes, and the occasional head of cattle. These incidents also include reports of deaths, however, confirmation was never obtained...
The Tiangong-1 Space Station
Although not exactly a meteorite, the Tiangong-1 space station has the whole world looking up simply because no one knows exactly where and when it will fall (even the Chinese authorities were wrong). The latest information suggests that several of its pieces are dense enough to survive the reentry process, which could take place between March 30 and April 2. In the worst case, we’re talking about projectiles with a mass of 100 kilograms, and no matter how much experts indicate an “extraordinarily low” probability of one of them hitting a person... the concern exists. Just remember what happened in Chelyabinsk in early 2013, and review some incidents that left certain meteorites too close to people.
Meteorites That Hit Home
The small portal International Comet Quarterly has a simple database with dozens of entries linked to meteorite impacts. One of those entries reminds us of the famous Peekskill meteorite, which fell in the city of the same name in October 1992, puncturing part of the trunk of a Chevrolet Malibu. Then there’s the Barwell meteorite, which on Christmas Eve 1965 struck this small English town, causing minor damage to several houses and completely piercing a car’s engine (something the insurance refused to acknowledge, calling it “an act of God”).
The oldest entries even predate Tunguska, where two people are supposed to have died but were never verified. A dead horse in New Concord, Ohio, a dead man and an injured woman in Oriang, India, and a dead cow in Macau, Brazil, are part of the list. Spain, Peru, Philippines, Japan, Australia, China, Syria, Romania... meteorites don’t discriminate, and as a certain meme says, they ask us: “And how are those space programs going?”
