There is so much video going around today that it would be impossible to link to it all, but I find it hard to watch this one without wondering How the hell did he not crash his car?
Today people are placing the Chelyabinsk meteorite fall into a scientific context. In the past it might have been thought of as a gift from a higher power. The earliest record of a meteorite fall is from 366 BC at Aegospotami. From Pliny’s Natural History II.59:
The Greeks boast that Anaxagoras, the Clazomenian, in the second year of the 78th Olympiad, from his knowledge of what relates to the heavens, had predicted, that at a certain time, a stone would fall from the sun. And the thing accordingly happened, in the daytime, in a part of Thrace, at the river Ægos. The stone is now to be seen, a waggonload in size and of a burnt appearance; there was also a comet shining in the night at that time. But to believe that this had been predicted would be to admit that the divining powers of Anaxagoras were still more wonderful, and that our knowledge of the nature of things, and indeed every thing else, would be thrown into confusion, were we to suppose either that the sun is itself composed of stone, or that there was even a stone in it; yet there can be no doubt that stones have frequently fallen from the atmosphere. There is a stone, a small one indeed, at this time, in the Gymnasium of Abydos, which on this account is held in veneration, and which the same Anaxagoras predicted would fall in the middle of the earth. There is another at Cassandria, formerly called Potidæa, which from this circumstance was built in that place. I have myself seen one in the country of the Vocontii, which had been brought from the fields only a short time before.
CC-BY-SA The Perseus Project.
It was quite a prediction, Anaxagoras had died almost a century earlier. Pliny was writing in the 1st Century AD and it’s possible that the tale had been massaged a bit in the intervening centuries. What Anaxagoras had said was that the Sun was a fiery stone bigger than the Peloponnese. It’s not a huge leap to think he predicted that someone would see a stone fall from the sky.
One of the freak coincidences for the Chelyabinsk meteorite is that it comes so close to the passage of 2012 DA14. The two seem to be unconnected. The Aegospotami meteorite also had a cosmic partner, which might have been Halley’s Comet. The idea is put forward in a paper in the Journal of Cosmology, but despite that it’s still worth some thought.
Konrad Andrä / Wikipedia
What remains of the Ensisheim Meteorite.
There are other meteorites which became known as gifts from heaven. Despite a reference in Acts, it’s not certain that a stone in Ephesus was associated with the meteorite fall. However, in 1492 near Ensisheim a 127kg rock fell. It was set upon by locals who chipped parts off it for luck, with some success. There is no record of any of the Ensisheim peasants being killed by meteor strike. Eventually King Maximillian of Austria heard about it and took the rock as a sign from God. He forbade anyone from chipping the stone, and then took a bit for himself. The remainder was taken to the local church and chained there to prevent it flying off again.
Another revered meteorite fall was found at Casas Grandes, about a hundred and forty miles south-west of Juarez, Mexico. The exact details of the discovery would make an archaeologist cringe. From the original paper: Curiosity led this bold knight of the crowbar to renew his excavations… Ouch! What the excavators found what a mummified iron meteorite. Normally rocks are expected to look after themselves, so the fact that someone felt it necessary to wrap it up in bandages indicates that it was something special.
The most famous divinely delivered meteorite of the all might not be a meteorite. The Black Stone of Mecca is, according to Islamic tradition, a meteorite. It is said to have been placed in the Kaaba, a small square holy building, by Mohammed. Whether or not this is true is uncertain. Early reports have suggested it’s accurate but a lack of modern description means some people think it’s possibly a stone that looks like a meteorite.
So far I’ve not seen anyone giving thanks to a higher power for the injuries caused by the Chelyabinsk meteor before it fell into Chebarkul Lake (possibly). This might change if fundamentalist theologians discover Chebarkul Lake is homosexual. In the meantime everyone else gets to see the amazing display and share their wonder, like others may have done in the past.
