This gallery contains drawings I did for a planetarium show I helped write and produce (with Jesse Tryon) at the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History. To see the full version fo the picture, please click on the thumbnail below.

If you would like to use any of these images for your own page or any other purpose, you must first email me (plummerj at umich.edu) and ask permission.
 
 

"Old Siberian  Woman" Recounting the explosion of an Asteroid over Siberia in 1908	"My Mother went into the cellar to skim the milk.  She heard a noise as if the logpile was collapsing.  That was the noise as it flew past. When she came out my grandfather was sitting there.  He'd been thrown about 10 feet by the blast of air.  He was on his knees... praying."
"Another Old  Siberian Woman"	"When the explosion happened, they thought the Earth had caved in.  They fell over; thinking everything was finished... that the end had come.  They thought the sky had fallen in... that life was over."
"Old Siberian Man"	(Gregori Verkatorov - 96 years old - was 7 years old then) "We were in bed, the family was asleep.  Everything started to shake.  People leapt to their feet asking "What's happening?"  The windows rattled... then there was a flash of color and the sun went in.  Everything shook;  you could hear the windows shaking.  Everything rocked.  People over there were running around, asking "what happened?  What caused it?"  The Earth had shaken.  They didn't know what it was.  No one did."
"Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" "Peshtigo People"	... 8pm on October 8, 1871.  That was the night that Mrs. O'Leary's cow supposedly started the Great Chicago fire by kicking over a lantern in a barn.  Within the same hour, severe fires occurred in several areas over a four-state region, including Illinois and Wisconsin.  One of these was in the small town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, where 1200 people were klled from the blaze.  Eyewitness accounts tell of acres of flattened trees, fierce hot winds, and burning embers flying horizontally through the sky. These observations could be explained by a shock wave caused by a comet or asteroid exploding as it burned through the Earth's atmosphere.  Perhaps Mrs. O'Leary's cow was falsely accused of setting the Great Chicago fire?  Might the fire have had extra-terrestrial origins?  Scientists can't say for sure.
"Explosion in  New Martinsville, West Virginia"	On March 10, 1897, a meteor exploded over the town of New Martinsville, West Virginia.  The noise of the explosion resembled the shock of a heavy artillery salute and was heard for a distance fo 20 miles.  The explosion caused fragments of rock to fly in all directions.  One man was knocked down by the force of air as it flew by him, rendering him unconscious.  A fragment of the meteor crushed the head of one horse while rendering the horse in the next stall stone deaf.
"Earth Gaining Mass  from Meteorites"	We don't know for sure how many meteorites are hitting the Earth everyday but astronomers have estimated that the Earth gains 40,000 tons of mass per year from meteorites and smaller meteors that burn up in the Earth's atmosphere - their dust settling to the ground.
"Asteroid Poised  to hit Arizona"	... 50, 000 years ago in what is now Northern Arizona.  The meteorite that struck the Earth hear was composed almost entirely of nickel and iron.  It is believed to have been 150 feet across and weighed roughly 300,000 tons.  The meteorite could have been traveling at a speed of about 40,000 mph when it struck the Earth, generating a force upon impact equal to the explosion of 20 million tons of TNT.