Space rocks crash to Earth with compounds formed billions of years ago. Spaceships perform imaginative flips in the sky, but explode when they land again too quickly. And sometimes iguanas fall from trees and land with their bellies up, frozen on the ground.
Here’s a list of seven intriguing objects – and a few reptiles – that made headlines for falling from the sky.
Exploding green fireball over the Tasman Sea
(CSIRO)
Researchers captured an incredible video as a bright, green meteor skimmed over the south coast of Tasmania, Australia – although the video is unfortunately a bit in black and white.
A research vessel called ResearcherOperated by Australia’s National Science Bureau, CSIRO, filmed the fireball as it burst through Earth’s atmosphere, traversed the sky, and then disintegrated over the Tasman Sea.
People who witnessed the meteor firsthand said it appeared green to the naked eye.
Rainbow meteorite found in Costa Rica
(Laurence Garvie / Center for Meteorite Studies / Arizona State University)
A rainbow-colored space rock erupted over Costa Rica in 2019, scattering debris between the villages of La Palmera and Aguas Zarcas. Now ongoing studies indicate that the fireball may contain the chemical building blocks of life.
The gentle meteor originally broke off from a larger asteroid, which formed from dust from an ancient nebula. That same nebula would later produce our solar system. The rainbow meteor contains complex carbon compounds, including amino acids, that can come together to form proteins and molecules such as DNA.
The sudden explosion of a SpaceX prototype
(SpaceX)
SpaceX’s Starship program launched a prototype called SN8 on a high-altitude test flight, and everything went according to plan – except for landing. The prototype took off from the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas and zoomed approximately 12.5 kilometers into the sky, performing complex aerial maneuvers along the way.
The vehicle then descended to a designated landing point on the ground, but it entered too quickly and burst into fire. The explosion occurred just 6 minutes and 42 seconds after takeoff.
A meteorite in Michigan
(Heck et al., Field Museum)
A meteorite crumbled in the sky over Hamburg, Michigan, and its pieces fell to a frozen lake below. That was in January 2018; this year, after a thorough analysis of the space rock, scientists announced that the meteorite contained thousands of organic compounds formed billions of years ago.
The compounds date back to the early days of our solar system, meaning that meteorites that crashed into the young Earth may have carried similar molecules. At the time, organic compounds from meteors could have been incorporated into primitive microbes, the team said, so studying the meteor in Michigan could give us a glimpse into early life on the planet.
Comet trash may have razed an ancient Syrian village to the ground
(Jennifer Rice / CometResearchGroup.org)
The prehistoric village of Abu Hureyra in northern Syria was home to the first known farmers on Earth, but then a mysterious fiery incident devastated the city, leaving mostly remains of thatched huts covered in carbon.
Among the wreckage, excavators also found glass balls formed from melting soil, molten iron and sulfur-rich samples, and nanodiamonds.
Scientists recently examined these glassy materials more closely and found that they could only have formed at temperatures in excess of 3,630 F (2000 C). The team concluded that fragments of a passing comet likely exploded over the village, releasing an intense heat wave that scorched the village and the ground below.
The asteroid that killed dinosaurs hit the worst possible angle
(Chase Stone)
The monstrous space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs hit Earth at such a steep angle that the dinosaurs never really had a chance. Scientists have modeled the asteroid’s path and found it to strike at an angle of about 60 degrees above the horizon.
Compared to shallower angles of impact, this trajectory caused the model asteroid to spew about three times as much sulfur and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The gas released in the impact caused global climate change and killed 75 percent of all life on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs.
Iguanas rain down on Floridians
(Chase Stone)
“Cool Temperatures with a Risk of Falling Reptiles” – this is essentially the warning the National Weather Service issues when the temperature drops below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees Celsius) in southern Florida.
That’s because, when the weather turns cool, the iguanas that usually hang in the treetops grow too old to cling to branches. As their metabolism slows down, the lizards become stiff, fall to the ground and appear dead; but as soon as the weather gets warmer, they come back into action.
This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.