WEBVTT - Meteoric Metal and Alien Iron, Part 3 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:07.120 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.440 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:15.880 name is. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.919 Robert Man and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.160 with part three of our series on human uses of 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:25.960 iron from space. I think we had a little interlude 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.480 there where. On Tuesday of this week we ran an 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.600 unrelated interview. But today we're back to finish off the 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.760 series with Part three. Now, if you haven't heard the 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.040 first two parts yet, you should probably go back check 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.279 those out first, But to do a quick recap. In 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.720 part one, we focused largely on the iron dagger of 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.240 Tuton Common, a blade found wrapped up with the pharaoh 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.080 tuton Common inside his coffin from before the time of 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.160 large scale smelting of iron in Egypt. And we discussed 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.600 chemical and mineral analysis showing that this dagger was almost 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.880 certainly made out of iron that came not from Earth, 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.959 but from a piece of iron meteorite that fell from space. 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:08.960 And it turns out that a lot of iron artifacts 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:13.080 like amulets, beads, tools and trinkets. A lot of these 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:17.399 iron artifacts from before the various regional iron ages have 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.880 this in common. They come from meteorites, so ancient peoples 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.960 were taking alien metal that fell from the sky and 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.039 shaping it to their uses. In Part two, we talked 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.560 about a few more specific artifacts believed to be made 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.280 from meteorite irons, such as the Shang Dynasty axes from 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.240 ancient China, and a meteorite iron sculpture known as the 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.679 Iron Man or sometimes in the media as the Space Buddha, 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.679 which was at one point alleged to be a Tibetan 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.080 depiction of a divine figure in Buddhism known as vice Ravana, 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.520 but according to some experts in Buddhist art, was actually 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.320 a twentieth century European design, amounting to a forgery or 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.120 at least a crude imitation of Tibetan imagery. And then 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.720 I ended up getting in to some of the speculation 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.760 about who could have actually made this sculpture, which is 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:09.000 a somewhat wild story if true, big if true. We 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.200 also talked about the history of knowledge that meteorites come 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.200 from space. So it took scientists of the European Enlightenment 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:18.880 until around the beginning of the nineteenth century to really 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.240 agree on this, but there is some evidence that people 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.079 in ancient China. In ancient Egypt and other cultures knew 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.920 that this metal came from above, and some of the 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.160 indications of this are linguistic, for example, in the fact 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.840 that in the ancient Egyptian language there's a convention to 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.160 refer to iron as iron of the sky or metal 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:41.720 of the sky. And so today we're back to talk 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.320 about more possible uses of meteorite iron in technology and 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.480 artifacts from human history. And you know, one thing that's 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.119 interesting this has sort of come up a little so far, 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:57.640 is that meteoric iron still retains a strong power, a 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.760 sense of power, and a mystical appeal, even after the 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.960 spread of tools and artifacts made from earth based iron. 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:09.200 So even after iron as an element becomes common and mundane, 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.720 and you know, it's smelted out of iron ore from 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.480 the earth and we use it to make all kinds 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:18.520 of things, including including steel products, there's still something undeniably 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:23.480 appealing and even perhaps mystical about iron from the stars. 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.600 That's right, and that's why in this next section I 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.800 want to get out of the Bronze Age and get 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.960 into the post Bronze Age Islamic world, where we see 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:42.120 various mentions of what may be meteoric iron. So a 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.920 lot of this is going to concern swords, at least 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.560 in the outset here. Swords have of course played a 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.680 significant role in human history and take on various meanings 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.240 across various cultures that use them, which is pretty much 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.760 any culture with access to the prerequisite metals. As we've 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.440 just us on stuff to blow your mind and the 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.320 artifact the short form episodes we were on Wednesday before, 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.440 we see sword like weapons in cultures that did not 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.560 have access to the prerequisite metal work, though their functionality 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.840 is ultimately perhaps more comparable to a club. Thinking here 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.240 about you know, particular examples of essentially wooden clubs that 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.240 are that to the untrained eye might look like a sword. 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.120 May even be you may even have bits of stone 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:29.919 embedded in them, you know, given this the swordlike appearance, 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.200 so there is something like, even when you cannot make 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.039 swords because you don't have the prerequisite materials, there is 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.600 something about the form, and it's an extension of the 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.000 human arm as a weapon that seems to lock up 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:47.320 in various cultures. At any rate, wherever the sword was known, 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:52.359 the sword increasingly took on various literal symbolic metaphorical meanings, 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.320 And this of course means that swords factor into various 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:59.320 religious traditions in a number of ways, like, for instance, 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:04.200 in Christiananity, Jesus mentions the sword as a metaphor for conflict, 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:09.240 and I believe the particular passage is widely interpreted to 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.080 refer to social division rather than armed conflict. But like 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.040 anything in a religious text, people will take it and 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:16.920 apply whatever meaning they want to it. 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:18.800 Yeah, there are a lot of ways you could read 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:20.960 I come not to bring peace, but a sword. 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.719 Yeah. Now you'll find swords, even flaming swords, and Buddhist 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.600 iconography and Hinduism, and the sword of course also factors 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.160 into Islam. And I bring up these other religious examples 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.600 in part because, based on some of the sources I 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:37.920 was looking at, it does seem that there is often 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.800 a Western bias in interpreting sword iconography and references in 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.240 Islam as more overtly tied to armed conflict than perhaps 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.479 in other religions. This is not to say that the 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.880 sword in Islamic traditions isn't, but as with other cultures, 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.919 it doesn't always refer to harmed conflict or violence. 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.040 Could be literal, could be metaphorical. 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.640 Exactly, so. Islamic swords may stand for religious or political authority, 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.000 they may stand for mystical knowledge and more in addition 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.599 to military victory. But moving on to specific swords, there 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.400 are a number of them of note from Islamic history. 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.440 The prophet Muhammad is held to have possessed nine swords 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.560 during his life, and the most famous of which is 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:26.240 the dul Fakari or dul Fakar. I may be pronouncing 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:30.680 this incorrectly. If so, I apologize, but the name's meaning 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.400 is largely uncertain, but may relate to concepts of splitting, 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:39.280 and is often depicted as a pronged, split or double 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.800 bladed sword. You can look up images of various images 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.840 of the sword in iconography, and depending on how it's presented, 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.000 the blade may split near the tip or I've seen 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.080 examples of the blades splitting close to the hilt. So 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.120 I guess it kind of runs the gamut from like 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.120 the highly symbolic to the you know, pievable and practical, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.320 and again that we're talking about largely about imagery here. 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:12.120 Actual symbolic swords have been produced, but the sword in 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:17.040 question here, the dual Forakar, is I think largely understood 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:22.040 to be a mystical and or mythological item. The story goes, however, 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.760 that the prophet acquires the sword at the Battle of 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.600 Bata in six twenty four, and then ultimately passes the 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:32.240 sword on to his son in law, Ali, the fourth Caliph, 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.560 now Caliph's by the way, if you're not familiar, these 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:40.000 were the Muslim civil and religious rulers who succeeded Muhammad. 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.200 So the sword in question here, the Dulafaikar, is strongly 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.040 associated with Ali. There are various legends about his military 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.040 exploits with this mystical weapon and its ability to cut 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.880 through his enemies, though it is also a symbol of 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.720 political and spiritual authority. It is in many ways said 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.800 to be the sword of swords, as Islamic blades were 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.600 traditionally inscribed with the phrase there is no sword but 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:09.000 dul Fokar, and there is no hero but Ali. Okay, 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.400 some superlatives, right right, And you can find examples of this. 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.720 I was looking around and like various museums inevitably have 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:21.080 swords of Islamic origin that have that do mention the 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.280 Dulfokar on them. So it's a can you can find 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.760 examples of this, perhaps even in your own museum within 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.360 your own region. Now, some say that the actual sword 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.840 in question here, among other relics, is currently in the 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.640 in the possession of the Topekapi Palace museum in Turkey. 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.920 But it also seems that in twelve verse Sheism, the 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.640 sword is believed to be in heaven or and or 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.680 in the possession of Muhammad Almadi, the Imam believed to 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.600 return at the end of time. So again there's this 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.160 idea that again a highly mystical sword that is held 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:02.680 in tradition to not even be perhaps on this earth anymore. Now, 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.199 I say all this to sort of going to get 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.920 into the idea of Islamic swords, but this is not 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.679 the sword that I wanted to talk about in connection 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.920 to today's episode. Like there's I've seen no discussion that 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.199 this sword or anything any artifact that is connected to 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:24.120 this sword containing meteoric iron, And I guess we should 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.400 also clarify that any sword in the possession of beings 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.400 not on this earth any longer cannot be analyzed. However, 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.080 we do see at least some mention of possible meteoric 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:39.320 iron weapons in Islamic traditions. I'll get to specific example 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.000 in just a second, but you know, we should remember 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.880 that medieval Arab astronomy was extremely advanced prior to the 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.679 rise of Islam in the seventh century. Pre Islamic Arabs 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.680 depended on empirical observations of constellations, and then with the 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.520 rise of Islam we see the emergence of this tradition 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.640 of five daily prayers, prayers that need to be directed 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:06.080 toward Mecca. And this creates a true incentive based on 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.040 religion for better charting of time and location. Thus there's 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.920 a reason to focus more on the movements of the stars, 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.080 and this ends up helping to foster a more robust 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.240 cultural understanding of astronomy, drawling upon other traditions in the 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.800 ancient world and building out new knowledge. Now, on the 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.960 other hand, I was reading a survey of Muslim materials 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.480 on comets and meteors by David Cook. According to Cook, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.959 comets and meteors during the for a very long time 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:41.880 in these traditions were not considered astronomical phenomenon. They were 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:46.520 held to occur within the atmosphere and therefore they were terrestrial, 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:52.720 so they were largely omitted from astronomical works, while mentions 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.520 would still be found in other forms of literature, especially 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.240 when they were held as portents or lined up with 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.280 important deaths or events such as the death of the 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.640 Prophet in six thirty two, as well as events in 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:08.400 the lives of the Third and fourth Caliphs. Now in 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.080 the past, I think this was when I was writing 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.559 for How Stuff Works, and I was writing or applying 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.400 some edits to an article that dealt with iron, and 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:24.959 I remember reading that blades of possible meteoric iron had 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.880 been associated with seventh century Caliphs, and I look back, 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:30.680 I tried to get into this because I early wanted 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.120 to figure out where's this coming from, what specifically is 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.280 this referring to? What are the sources? And the initial 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.320 source was a nineteen forty one paper published in the 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.880 Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:47.200 Ireland titled the Use of Meteoric Iron by ta Rickard, 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.559 and at one point in the text he discusses the 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:55.240 possibility that Zeus's thunderbolts were a quote poetic expression for 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.440 the use of meteoric iron, and that later I'm going 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.880 to read a quote hear from it In later times, 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:07.040 we read that Attila, timor Antar and other devastating conquerors 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.640 had swords from heaven. So also the Caliphs, whose swords 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.800 were made of the same meteoric material as the Cobbastone 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.679 that lies in the Holy Sanctuary at Mecca. Avajo's, an 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.720 Arab philosopher of the twelfth century, states that excellent swords 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.679 were made from a meteor weighing one hundred pounds that 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.760 fell near Cordoba in Spain. Now, if you've listened to 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:29.800 the show for a while, you know that we did 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.600 in an episode on the Cobbastone the Blackstone of Mecca 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.160 a while back, probably a few years at this point, 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:38.760 And one of the things that we did cover there 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.800 that maybe wasn't as a parent to the author of 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.160 this paper, is that the origins of the Cobbastone are 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:45.240 far from a settled matter. 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:47.480 Yeah, I don't remember. It's been a while, so I 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.080 don't remember exactly what we concluded there, but it seemed 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.640 like there were still plenty of room for uncertainty there, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:59.040 though there were suggestions of reasons for thinking it may 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.680 have been a stone created by an impact of some sort, 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:04.920 whether it came from above, or maybe whether it was 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.920 created of like one of those types of glasses created 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:09.760 by impacts. 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.280 Yeah, yeah, And I think ultimately it's just all observational 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.280 because it's a sacred relic. It's not going to be 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.520 scientifically analyzed, which is the case with many relics around 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.640 the world. In getting into this whole business about the sword, 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:25.880 so that was what I really wanted an answer to, 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.640 and I've got to admit that I was able to 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.360 find out precious little about Islamic swords alleged to have 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.400 been forged from meteoric iron. Rickard here was citing British 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.800 geologist Sir Lazarus Fletcher, who lived eighteen fifty four through 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.880 nineteen twenty one, but rooting around in available texts by 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:46.880 this author, I didn't really find any answers to my 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.080 questions either. I did consult a couple of sources about 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.040 the history of metallurgy in the region. And it is 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.959 key to note that we've already touched on islam arises. 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.120 After the end of the Bronze Age in the Middle East, 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.680 the Islamic world had access to Damascus steel, so any 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:08.160 meteoric weapons would be largely symbolic and or relics of 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.640 the past, and they clearly had access to what is 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.240 often held up is the best steel of the day. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.840 Right, steel being a product of iron, So it would 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:17.599 not be a question like we talked about with the 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.480 King tut example, with this being a you know, a 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.960 product from before the regional iron age, from before people 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.240 before there was large scale smelting of iron in the area. 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.160 There's plenty of smelting of iron and production of iron artifacts. 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.280 These would just be iron from a different source in 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.040 a place that was already rich with iron, exactly. 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.480 Yeah. Now, interestingly enough, interestingly enough here, I don't know 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.240 to what extent, or any extent this ends up coloring 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:49.640 these older writings by Western writers, if this factors into 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:54.080 the analysis at all. But there is actually a line 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:59.360 in the Quran fifty seven twenty five that refers to 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.520 iron in a way that is sometimes interpreted as having 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.240 some connection to meteoric iron. I'm going to read the 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.920 passage here, this is of course in translation. Indeed, we 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.000 sent our messengers with clear proofs, and with them we 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.080 sent down the scripture and the balance of justice, so 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.520 that people may administer justice. And we sent down iron 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.240 with its great might benefits for humanity and means for 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.160 Allah to prove who is willing to stand up for 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:31.240 him and his messengers without seeing him. Surely Allah is 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.320 all powerful almighty ah. 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:37.200 So I imagine some interpretation is hinging there on the phrase 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.640 we sent down iron, with the idea of iron somehow 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.000 coming from above exactly. 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:48.640 Yeah. I was reading paper talk titled Basic Concepts of 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:52.479 Physics and the Perspective of the Qur'an by M. M. Karashi. 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.800 This was in a nineteen eighty nine edition of Islamic Studies, 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:58.960 and the author here writes that quote the implication of 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.960 the words has become fully apparent only through historical investigation 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.880 of the earliest use of meteoric iron. So I could 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.080 be wrong on this end. As always I invite correction 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.640 or clarity, But I believe some commentators argue that these 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.920 lines in the Qur'an reference and historical understanding of iron 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.400 meteor rights, you know, perhaps drawing on again, as we've 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.280 touched on knowledge that already existed in the ancient world 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:27.840 in different parts and to different degrees, that there was 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:32.880 a connection between iron and meteorites, between iron and the 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.720 sky again makes perfect sense, given everything we've discussed, but 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.480 isn't also also isn't necessarily guaranteed. Some also seem to 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.000 interpret this verse as just stating that iron in the 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:50.200 earth was a creation of Allah, and consideration of meteors 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.440 doesn't seem to always serve as part of that conversation. 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.920 You know, it was sent down just a way of 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.840 saying it came from God, which you know fair enough. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.440 And say anything was sent down, you could, I guess 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.119 you could say a giraffe was sent down, but that 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.440 doesn't mean it actually had a re entry into the 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:08.440 Earth's atmosphere. 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.399 Well, everything in this passage is said to be sent down, 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:15.240 and the other cases of sent down here don't necessarily 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:17.879 seem to imply a physical descent from space. 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.760 Right, So again I invite correction or clarity on these points, 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:25.440 especially from anyone who has kroonic knowledge and so forth. 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.720 But I did find it interesting that in this passage 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:34.640 we see a possible reference to meteoric iron, and then 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:39.040 we also have these other, like more perhaps dubious mentions 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:44.720 in Western writings about meteoric swords meteoric iron swords that 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:45.920 were used by the Calbs. 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.879 All right, well, I wanted to begin this next section 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:02.600 by looking at how big chunks of meteorc iron arrive 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:07.040 on Earth. Already, we've mentioned several examples of meteoroids that 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:12.280 at some point entered Earth's atmosphere and fragmented or shattered 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.960 in the air, separating into a series of smaller meteorite 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.160 fragments which can be found across an impact field. For example, 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.960 in the last episode, we talked about the Chinga meteorite, 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:28.359 one piece of which was probably used to make the 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.639 so called space Buddha sculpture that we talked about. And 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.800 while the artistic origins of that sculpture are highly suspect, 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.000 the physical origins are not. Really it does seem to 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.080 be agreed upon that this is a piece of iron meteorite. 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.720 So many fragments of the Chinga meteorite have been found 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.719 in the region of Tuva, which is in southern Siberia, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.080 since the first recorded discovery by miners in the early 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:57.000 nineteen hundreds. This scattering of iron meteorite chunks over a 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:01.879 large area is the result of some original object coming 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:07.000 apart into pieces somewhere in the atmosphere above roughly ten 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:11.240 to twenty thousand years ago. Now, there are different ways 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:16.240 for meteoroids to come apart or lose their structural integrity 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.600 in the atmosphere. In some cases they land roughly intact, 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.919 in some cases they split up into some number of 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.840 smaller pieces from the original, and in some cases they 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.359 basically just explode or vaporize, and on the explosion end 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.560 of the scale, the explosions before the meteoroids reach the ground. 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.920 These explosions are referred to as air bursts. In many 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.639 such cases, the entire object, or nearly the entire object, 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.160 is burned up or reduced to dust in the process. 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.520 In the case of the relatively recent Cheliabinsk meteoroid, which 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.479 exploded over Russia in February twenty thirteen, an asteroid that 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.840 was originally like twenty meters or sixty five feet in diameter. 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.600 When it entered the Earth's atmosphere, it exploded a few 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.560 tens of kilometers above the ground. For some reason, I've 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.920 seen different estimates about the altitude. Some say twenty three 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:14.239 kilometers up, others say thirty kilometers up. But wherever it was, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:18.520 this explosion released a huge amount of energy, expressed in 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:22.119 the hundreds of kilotons of TNT, maybe like four hundred 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.720 or five hundred kilotons of T and T. The explosion 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.760 way up there, damaged thousands of buildings on the ground, 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.840 blew out glass, and sent some fifteen hundred people to 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:35.600 the hospital, though thankfully no deaths were reported. 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.800 The footage of this, like the dashboard footage that was 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.720 going around, is quite incredible, so if you haven't seen it, 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:42.720 definitely seek it out. 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.359 Absolutely that is worth looking at. It is awe inspiring, 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.760 and this is a particularly big air burst in the 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.280 modern era, not of course the biggest that can happen, 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.640 but very big and recent memory, though, I was reading 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.880 if the object had impacted the ground instead of exploding 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:01.600 high up in the atmosphere, if it had hit the 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.359 ground or exploded lower in the atmosphere the dam the 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:06.920 damage could have been much much worse. So in a way, 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.320 the outcome was rather lucky. But despite the fact that 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.439 the Chelubenzk meteoroid entered the atmosphere as an asteroid the 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.840 size of a house, I've read estimates that well below 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.879 one percent of its mass reached the ground in the 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:24.239 form of solid meteorites. Again, this is something where I've 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.520 seen different numbers on the estimate. I've read like zero 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.920 point one percent of its mass or like zero point 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.080 zero five percent of its mass, some very small percent 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.160 of its mass actually reached the ground in solid chunks, 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.680 and the rest evaporated or was turned to dust as 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.320 the object broke apart and burned up. So this got 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:47.879 me wondering what actually causes a fast moving meteoroid to 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.840 just blow up or even vaporize like that. A key 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.760 factor is speed. So the original object, which might be 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.639 a chunk of asteroid or comet material at least a 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:01.520 few meters in diameter or maybe up to tens of meters, 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:06.800 typically enters Earth's atmosphere at great speed. According to the 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.239 American Meteor Society, meteors tend to enter the atmosphere going 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:15.080 anywhere between eleven kilometers per second and seventy two kilometers 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:19.760 per second. And there's actually an interesting fact concerning this 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.080 variability that you might not think about it first. The 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:27.719 speed with which a meteor enters Earth's atmosphere depends not 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.160 only on the speed of the comet or the asteroids 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:34.159 orbit relative to the Sun, so it has its own 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:38.119 intrinsic speed as it's orbiting the Sun, but it's also 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.240 affected by the movement of the Earth, which is simultaneously 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:45.680 orbiting the Sun at about thirty kilometers per second and 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:49.720 is also though this is less important, rotating at about 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.600 one thy six hundred and seventy kilometers per hour. Of course, 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.280 speed is always, you know, it's relative to an observer. 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.400 So even though we use language like the speed at 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:03.119 which a meetia enters our atmosphere, that could give the 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.280 false impression that our atmosphere is stationary and the media 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:09.680 is moving. In reality, both are moving, and they're moving 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:12.760 in their own directions, and so the speed of entry 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.919 is determined by the relative velocity of both objects to 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:18.919 each other, you know, So it could be kind of 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:21.360 trying to catch up with the part of the atmosphere 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:24.400 it hits, or it could be like slamming into more 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:26.159 kind of a head on kind of collision with the 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:28.800 part of the atmosphere it hits. And then of course, 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:32.760 other things about other things about the way a meteor 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:37.320 enters the atmosphere will determine, will determine its ultimate fate, 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:40.399 whether it burns up, what the resistance is, and so 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:44.120 that would include things like the angle of entry. Anyway, 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.600 whatever the speed is at that incredible speed, the air 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.440 directly in front of the meteoroid. Once it enters the 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:57.280 atmosphere becomes greatly compressed. It's squeezing a lot of atmospheric 0:23:57.400 --> 0:24:02.240 gas in its path into a very small space, very rapidly, 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:05.200 so you can imagine it kind of like a pneumatic 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:08.600 piston that is moving so fast it doesn't need a 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:11.719