A spokesman for the Russian Academy of Sciences said that in the past five years, the astronomers scanned the so-called near meteorite streams. Earlier, it was believed that these streams were not dangerous, but now, after their experiments, the scientists have slightly changed their point of view. Pointing the telescope on Terskol Peak in the North Caucasian Kabardin-Balkar Republic at the radiant of every "stellar rain," scientists saw many rather large "stones" of gas, ice and dust. In comparison with small, centimeter size fragments of comets, which burn in the atmosphere, the streams contain fragments 30 meters in diameter and larger. Only by sheer luck, will the large "drops" of stellar rain miss Earth. The astronomers decided to record all the gigantic meteors they saw in a catalog. Every numbered celestial object will have the date of its discovery and what type of stream it belongs to next to the entry.
MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - Experts at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Astronomy and the observatory on Elbrus (Caucasus) have started compiling a catalog of celestial objects that pose a threat to Earth, Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported.
