Carlo Zapponi, a data visualization designer at Nokia, has created a pretty splendid visualization of the 1,042 meteorites that humans have witnessed hitting our planet since 861 AD. If you click the image above, you will see the visualization in full screen mode. And if you then click on various points along the timeline, you’ll get essential data (produced by The Meteoritical Society) about each observed meteor strike. Most are clustered in the 19th and 20th centuries. The last is the terrifying rock that blasted through Siberia earlier this year.
Note: A total of 34,513 meteorites have hit our planet since 2500 BC. But the vast majority were never observed. They were only later found.
Other Great Visualizations:
Perpetual Ocean: A Van Gogh-Like Visualization of Our Ocean Currents
Visualizing WiFi Signals with Light
Watch a Cool and Creepy Visualization of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time
Stephen Hawking’s Universe: A Visualization of His Lectures with Stars & Sound
Just to clarify, these are the meteorites which have been observed and reported and noted. The value of 34,513 for the number of meteorites which have hit the earth since 2500BC also seems rather overly precise. Perhaps you mean ‘at least…’