Would you believe that Chinese astronomers made the EARLIEST records of meteorite showers? I'm not lying to any of you, but, it's true! Again, there were three main books that have given detailed descriptions on the recordings of the meteorites thousands of years ago. Please refer to the table below.
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Title
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Contents
and quotes
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Song
Shu(History of the Liu Song Dynasty)
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"In
the third month...of the fifth year of Daming, the mooneclipsed the stars
in the Zuanyuan constellation...millions upon millions of shooting stars
of various sizes and lengths travelled together westward and the scene
remained until dawn."
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Xin
Tang Shu(New History of the Tang Dynasty)
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A
talk on the Perseids, " On the night of the first of the fifth month
of the second year of Kaiyuan, a stream of shooting stars headed for the
northwest. In it were both bigger stars the size of pots or measures and
innumerable smaler ones. The stream flowed through the Pole and all the
stars in the sky shook. The sight persisted until daybreak."
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Meng
Xi Bi Tan( New History of the Tang Dynasty)
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Shen
Kuo, the author, pointed out that the major element of some meteorites
was iron, "One evening a sound like thunderbolt was heard in Changzhou.
It was from a big star shooting through the southeastern sky, equalling
the moon in size. Later another explosion was heard and the star was in
the southeast...At the scen a very deep hole as big as a drinking was
discovered. People looked into the hole and found the star in it, still
shining...There was a slight bulge on one side of it. It was the colour
of iron and was as heavy."
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