Earth and other planets orbit around the Sun.
Smallest of the planets is Pluto with about 1700 kms radius. The largest is Jupiter with about 68700 kms radius. Earth with its radius of 6378 kms is 5th largest planet in Solar system.
But apart from these large planets there are innumerable number of very small size rocks. A majority of these are located between Mars and Jupiter. They vary in size from about 1000 km, down to the size of pebbles. Sixteen asteroids have a diameter of more than 240 km. Most probably Asteroids are material that never coalesced into a planet.
When any of these asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere it starts shining as it hots up due to friction with atmosphere. This burning and brightly shining object is called as a meteorite.
Mostly the meteorites are so small bodies when they enter the atmosphere that they burn themselves out fully before they reach Earth's surface. So only a streak of light is visible and we call it as a Shooting Star.
BUT .. if the size is large then it can reach and impact on Earth causing depression and rupture in Earth's surface and the hot body of it burns the soil around its impact site causing a circular ring.
The small impacts are hardly noticeable but the larger ones create permenant depressions due to evaporation of Earth at that site. These are called as craters and large craters survive the weather changes and turn into lakes.
There are over 50 sites around Earth which are definitely known to have been formed due to asteroid impact.
Do you know that there are at least 2 major lakes formed due to this phenomenon?
Yes there is one in Rajasthan at Ramgarh and the other one is at Lonar in Maharashtra near Mumbai. Ramgarh has the Lake size of 3 Kms while the one at Lonar is just below 2 kms.
Lonar is seen in wikimapia at this link.
The Ramgarh can be viewed using this link.
Back to Main Index
Smallest of the planets is Pluto with about 1700 kms radius. The largest is Jupiter with about 68700 kms radius. Earth with its radius of 6378 kms is 5th largest planet in Solar system.
But apart from these large planets there are innumerable number of very small size rocks. A majority of these are located between Mars and Jupiter. They vary in size from about 1000 km, down to the size of pebbles. Sixteen asteroids have a diameter of more than 240 km. Most probably Asteroids are material that never coalesced into a planet.
When any of these asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere it starts shining as it hots up due to friction with atmosphere. This burning and brightly shining object is called as a meteorite.
Mostly the meteorites are so small bodies when they enter the atmosphere that they burn themselves out fully before they reach Earth's surface. So only a streak of light is visible and we call it as a Shooting Star.
BUT .. if the size is large then it can reach and impact on Earth causing depression and rupture in Earth's surface and the hot body of it burns the soil around its impact site causing a circular ring.
The small impacts are hardly noticeable but the larger ones create permenant depressions due to evaporation of Earth at that site. These are called as craters and large craters survive the weather changes and turn into lakes.
There are over 50 sites around Earth which are definitely known to have been formed due to asteroid impact.
Do you know that there are at least 2 major lakes formed due to this phenomenon?
Yes there is one in Rajasthan at Ramgarh and the other one is at Lonar in Maharashtra near Mumbai. Ramgarh has the Lake size of 3 Kms while the one at Lonar is just below 2 kms.
Lonar is seen in wikimapia at this link.
The Ramgarh can be viewed using this link.
Back to Main Index
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