A meteorite contrail is seen over a village in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. (AP)

Earth suddenly seems to be dodging celestial objects, although there was a direct hit earlier today when a streaking meteorite exploded above Russia’s Ural Mountains.

Hundreds of people were injured.  The powerful blast damaged the facades of buildings and shattered windows, according to the Russian Interior Ministry,

Now all eyes are on an asteroid that should zip past our planet today at 1924 UTC. However, experts say we are in no danger from asteroid 2012 DA14.

“According to NASA scientists, the trajectory of the Russian meteorite was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, making it a completely unrelated object. Information is still being collected about the Russian meteorite and analysis is preliminary at this point. In videos of the meteor, it is seen to pass from left to right in front of the rising sun, which means it was traveling from north to south. Asteroid DA14′s trajectory is in the opposite direction, from south to north.”

This animated set of images depicts asteroid 2012 DA14 as it was seen on 02-14-13, at a distance of 748,000 kilometers. The asteroid is the large bright spot moving near the middle of image. The other dots are stars in the background. A line that appears comes from a satellite that passed through the field of view.(Image credit: LCOGT/E. Gomez/Faulkes South/Remanzacco Observatory)

The asteroid is expected to fly past us at a speed of about 7.8 kilometers per second, coming within 27,000 kilometers of Earth. That’s close enough so that it will pass inside the ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites that circle our planet at about 36,000 kilometers above Earth.

The Barringer (or Meteor) Crater in Arizona measures 180 meters deep and 1,200 meters wide. Scientists estimate that a small asteroid, about the same size as the passing 2012 DA14, created the hole some 25,000 years ago. (Photo: Kevin Walsh @ Creative Commons via Flickr)

NASA, which has been studying the asteroid’s path, says there’s no chance the asteroid might collide with Earth. The flyby will, however, provide a unique opportunity for researchers to study a near-Earth object up close.

The 2012 DA14 asteroid is about 45 meters across, less than the width of a soccer field, weighs about 130,000 metric tons, and is most likely made of stone, rather than metal or ice.

Although the passing asteroid is relatively small in size, it could pack a mighty punch if it did swerve out of its projected path and hit the Earth.

Jack Rozdilsky an emergency management expert at Western Illinois University has considered the possibility of a hit.

“If the 150-foot asteroid passing Earth on Friday were on a collision course with the planet, it would impact the surface with an explosive force of 2.4 megatons of TNT,” Rozdilsky said.

While such a hit would not be planet destroying, it could wipe out a large metropolitan area in a one single blow.

“While popular disaster films such as ‘Armageddon’ have depicted fictionalized accounts of asteroids threatening Earth, asteroid impacts on Earth are not necessarily far-fetched,” Rozdilsky said. “In 1908, a comet impacted Tunguska, a forest in a remote area of northern Russia, with the resultant explosion devastating a large unpopulated area.”

A NASA animation show the trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 as it travels within the Earth-moon system on Feb. 15, 2013

The Martian meteorite known as “Black Beauty” weighs approximately 320 grams. (Carl Agee/University of New Mexico)

Scientists have determined a meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2011 is about 2.1 billion years old and could be the first meteorite to come from the surface of Mars.

The meteorite, designated NWA (North West Africa) 7034 and nicknamed “Black Beauty,” weighs about 320 grams and is loaded with Martian water. It is so uniquely different from other Martian meteorites that scientists say it is in a class of its own.

They believe Black Beauty, which contains 10 times more water than other Martian meteorites from unknown origins, formed during the beginning of the most recent geologic period on Mars, known as the Amazonian.

“The age of NWA 7034 is important because it is significantly older than most other Martian meteorites,” said Mitch Schulte, program scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters in Washington. “We now have insight into a piece of Mars’ history at a critical time in its evolution.”

The NASA-funded team of scientists from various universities and institutions analyzed the mineral and chemical composition, age, and water content of the meteorite.

Black Beauty’s chemical composition includes organic carbon, which is similar to other Martian meteorites, known as SNC meteorites. However, other aspects of Black Beauty’s composition are very different.

“The texture of the NWA meteorite is not like any of the SNC meteorites,” said Andrew Steele, who led the carbon analysis at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory. “This is an exciting measurement in Mars and planetary science. We now have more context than ever before to understanding where they may come from.”

Black Beauty, according to the research team, is made of cemented fragments of basalt, rock  formed from rapidly-cooled lava. The fragments are primarily feldspar and pyroxene, most likely from volcanic activity.

Scientists say the Black Beauty meteorite came from the surface, or crust, of Mars (NASA)

“This Martian meteorite has everything in its composition that you’d want in order to further our understanding of the Red Planet,” said Carl Agee, leader of the analysis team and director and curator at the University of New Mexico’s Institute of Meteoritics in Albuquerque. “This unique meteorite tells us what volcanism was like on Mars two billion years ago. It also gives us a glimpse of ancient surface and environmental conditions on Mars that no other meteorite has ever offered.”

Up until now,  SNC meteorites have been the only meteorite samples from the Red Planet  scientists have been able to study, however, their exact point of origin on Mars isn’t  known.  Scientists say recent data from NASA Mars lander and orbiter missions indicate the SNC meteorites are actually a mismatch with the Martian crust.

But Black Beauty does match up with surface rocks and outcrops studied by NASA’s Mars rovers, such as Curiosity, Opportunity and Spirit, as well as its orbiting satellites, like the Mars Odyssey Orbiter.

“The contents of this meteorite may challenge many long-held notions about Martian geology,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “These findings also present an important reference frame for the Curiosity rover as it searches for reduced organics in the minerals exposed in the bedrock of Gale Crater.”

Fragments of the Sutter’s Mill meteorite fall collected by astronomer Dr. Peter Jennisken. (NASA)

Researchers have struck scientific gold at Sutter’s Mill, site of the famed California Gold Rush where the precious metal was first discovered in 1848.

In April of this year, the scientists recovered a rare meteorite which contains clues to the early history of the solar system.

Using Doppler radar, the same technology used by weather forecasters, the scientists detected a shower of meteors raining down over the communities of Coloma and Lotus, just after the asteroid broke up in the atmosphere.

That allowed scientists to, for the first time,  quickly find, recover and study a primitive meteorite that had little exposure to the elements.

It’s the most pristine look at the surface of ancient asteroids scientists have been able to study so far. Because of the rapid recovery of materials, scientists were able to detect compounds that quickly disappear once a meteorite hits Earth.

Reporting in Science, the researchers say their rare find was classified as a Carbonaceous-Mighei or CM-type carbonaceous chondrite meteorite, which is known to contain water and complex organic compounds, such as amino acids, molecules that help form life.

But, according to NASA’s Danny Glavin, he and the other scientists weren’t able to detect many of the amino acids in their find because it appeared the samples had been heated in space before arriving on Earth.

“The small three meter-sized asteroid that impacted over California’s Sierra Nevada came in at twice the speed of typical meteorite falls,” said lead author Peter Jenniskens, of the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center, both located in California. “Clocked at 64,000 miles per hour, it was the biggest impact over land since the impact of the four meter-sized asteroid 2008 TC3, four years ago over Sudan.”

The scientists also say that, for the first time, they were able to identify the region of space where these types of meteorites come from.

After studying photographs and video of the asteroid, Jenniskens figured that it came in on an unusually low-angled orbit, more like a comet‘s orbit, passing closer to the sun than what has been learned from past recorded meteorite falls.

Scientists found the asteroid, as it was in orbit, was influenced by the gravity of both the Sun and Jupiter at times.

“It circled the sun three times during a single orbit of Jupiter, in resonance with that planet,” Jenniskens said.

A meteor flashes across the sky during the peak of the November 2009 Leonid Meteor Shower. (Photo: Ed Sweeney via Wikimedia Commons)

The asteroid that spawned the meteorite was estimated to be around 45359 kg.  Of that, less than 1kg was actually recovered on the ground in the form of 77 tiny meteorites. The biggest of those meteorites was 205 grams.

While the scientists didn’t find much actual gold in the Sutter’s Mill meteorite, about 150 parts per billion, it was still “scientific gold,” according to co-author and cosmochemist Qing-zhu Yin of the University of California at Davis.

“With 78 other elements measured, Sutter’s Mill provides one of the most complete records of elemental compositions documented for such primitive meteorites,” he said.