Cosmic Dreaming

Traveling at perhaps 20km a second, the giant mass of iron and nickel crosses western Australia in under a minute and dives into the atmosphere, its path traced by the hiss and crackle of electrophonic noise, echoed by thunderous sonic booms as the air slows it through the sound barrier. Around it an envelope of ionized gas produces an incandescent fireball, brilliant as the sun, hot enough to vaporize the metal until what's left - as massive as a battleship and some 50m across - drives itself at more than 20,000 km an hour into the desert floor. At the point...