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In the third installment on some of the largest meteorites to have ever hit Earth we explore some of the larger but lesser-known impacts on the planet. These include the impact sites of Chesapeake, Popigai, Manicouagan, Sudbury, and the largest of them all - Vredefort. We explore which may have been possible multiple-impact events, how they would've affected the world at the time, and how they continue to affect the world today. We go into the crater of one impact site deep underground to one of the most expensive scientific laboratories in the world which we use to study... outer space? (26/29)

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In this second episode on some of the biggest meteorites to have ever hit the planet we explore whether or not a large meteorite has ever hit a city. Currently, there are claims that this has happened twice in ancient times - at Tall el-Hammam in Jordan and Ch'ing Yang, China. But the evidence for each are very different. We uncover that the evidence for one of these is completely false and explore the evidence that proves it. We further explore how they connect to an entire network of pseudoscientific actors and their impact on the integrity of science. A must-listen for anyone interested in the importance of science in an age of misinformation and how easily a concerted effort in faking information can get a lot of media attention. (25/29)

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This is the first of four episodes dedicated to some of the biggest meteorite impacts in the history of the Earth. Today's episode is dedicated to the most mysterious - the 1908 Tunguska Event. What is actually known about what happened on that June morning in Siberia over a century ago? Where does the baseless speculation end and the evidence begin? In this episode we look at the evidence left behind by the only meteoritics expert who went to investigate - Leonid Kulik - and see what professionals today have to say about the most powerful event in recent history. (24/29)

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In the last episode we explored how much people will pay to possess a meteorite and the wide ranging prices depending on the type of meteorite. But we saved the most valuable meteorites for this episode starting with the pallasite, which can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a slice. We learn about the first widely studied pallasite found by Peter Simon Pallas, a brilliant naturalist that does not get the recognition today that he deserves for helping the scientific community understand the natural world. The other valuable meteorites are those from other planets like Mars or even our own Moon. Then we dive into the some of the largest meteorite collections in the world that are worth millions of dollars. Finally, we explore one of the most mysterious meteorite landfalls of the modern world and the unusual situation meteorite hunters found themselves in after traveling to the remote region of Carancas, Peru. Did this meteorite truly make people sick? (23/29)

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What happens when a rock from space falls onto our planet of complex property and ownership rights? Is it finders keepers? Is it owned by whose property it lands on? What if it hits you, do you own it? Welcome to the wild world of ownership rights of meteorites. In this episode we learn about some of the most well known meteorite hunters including Mike Farmer, Robert Ward, Darryl Pitt, and Robert Haag who both compete and collaborate with each other. Learn about Ann Hodges who was hit by a meteorite in the 1950s who ended up having to pay money for the meteorite while a nearby farmer sold another piece of the same meteorite for enough money to buy a house and a car. Auction houses like Bonhams and Christie's have documented what people will pay for all kinds of meteorites and in this episode we explore some of the prices different meteorites go for. Finally, can a meteorite be stolen? We follow the histories of two major meteorites - Willamette and Campo Del Cielo - and explore the ethics of claiming a meteorite for yourself. Owning a piece of the heavens is likely more complex than you originally thought. (22/29)

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What is a meteor shower and how is it different from the lone fireball streaking across the sky? It turns out that meteor showers don't come from asteroids but instead comets. In fact, debris from meteor showers, unlike fireballs, very rarely ever make it to the ground, burning up on the way down. This has made it extremely difficult for scientists to study remnants from comets on Earth so instead scientists decided to leave Earth and go to them. The first mission to a comet - Giotto - was a huge international undertaking to chase down the most famous of them all - Halley's Comet. With the success of Giotto, multiple other missions have since gone to other comets around the solar system bringing back exciting results with glimpses into the Universe and even the possible origins of life. Finally, we learn about the greatest meteor storms in recorded history and how it led to people believing that they were living through the end of the world. (21/29)

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In the last episode we explored how meteors and meteorites have been intertwined with faith as far back as ancient Egypt and in to the modern day. But this fascination has a dark side - it creates large quantities of misinformation - both unintentional and intentional. In this episode we explore both kinds through looking at other possible historical meteorites including an alleged Nazi Tibetan meteorite statue, the Ephesian Artemis, and the original Magna Mater statue that was brought to Rome from Anatolia. We also follow the history of the earliest recorded meteorite recovery - Ensisheim. Through following the history of the Ensisheim meteorite we see how people tried to grapple with the idea that rocks fell from the sky as well as how both science and faith can both lead to errors in thinking. It took the brilliance of one man - Ernst Chladni - to put the first true theory together and become immortalized as the Father of Meteoritics. With many parallels to the modern world this episode can also help us reflect on our own consumption of information and the conclusions we choose to make. (20/29)

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As extraterrestrial visitors meteors and meteorites have always fascinated humanity, but what role have meteorites played in the realm of faith? Whether it is the ancient crater at Lonar Lake in India, fireballs that fly across the sky over the Pacific Island of Mer, and possibly even the Black Stone of Kaaba, sacred to Islam there are signs that meteors and meteorites have a special role across all faiths of the world. One of the most ancient examples of this may have possibly been the venerated Benben stone of ancient Egypt, a symbol that is still found on American money today. In this episode we explore some of the known ancient Egyptian connections to meteorites and space as well as the city that was allegedly built around a meteorite and became the most well known temple-city of the the ancient world - Heliopolis. But how much is true and how much are we rewriting history and only seeing what we want to see? When we are eager to see something it's important to pull back and consider what is speculative and what is true. (19/29)

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Of course, Ultima Thule was never truly on Earth but always in the heavens. Since time immemorial humans have looked up and wondered what they were looking at and what it must be made of. But every year roughly 44,000 tons of rock rain down on us in the form of meteorites. In this episode we take a crash course in the three main types of meteorites - chondrites, achondrites, and irons. Their origins are ancient with some as old as the solar system, others that were once part of the Moon or Mars, and others still from the cores of long forgotten obliterated planets. Learn about the origin of the solar system, the fascinating story of the meteorite ALH84001 that possibly tells the story of ancient Martian life billions of years ago, as well as about the remnants that have been retrieved from cataclysmic planetary collisions. (18/29)

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With humanity finally able to reach Antarctica we were able to pull out ice cores that go much deeper back in time than anything from the Arctic, giving us the ability to peer back millions of years. But ice cores are not the only way humans are able to peer into the past and rocks found all over the planet allow us to see back to nearly the creation of Earth. And just like ice cores, rock samples have shown the Milankovitch Cycles at work the entire time leading the Earth to take on truly alien landscapes. A space traveler could fly by Earth at different times and see a planet of magma, an ice-covered snowball, or an oxygen-free wet and warm water world, just to name a few of Earth's previous looks. In this episode we explore the most extreme climates the Earth has ever been through - the icehouses and greenhouses. We learn how they got that way, how they reversed course, and how the climate is intertwined with life on Earth leading to the greatest extinction event in the history of the world. (17/29)

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