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Yekaterina Pustynnikova / Chelyabinsk.ru via AP
Click through scenes from Russia's Chelyabinsk region, where a huge meteor fireball set off alarms, injured hundreds of people and caused a factory roof to collapse.
Scientists have raised their estimates of the size and power of what turns out to be the most widely witnessed asteroid strike in modern history. The size estimate puts the object that caused Friday's meteor blast over Russia in a troublesome category of asteroids: big enough to cause damage, but small enough to evade detection.
The new estimates, based on additional readings from a sensor network built to detect nuclear blasts, suggest the meteor released the energy equivalent of nearly 500 kilotons of TNT. That's about 30 times the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
Experts have been assessing the level of the meteor explosion using a network of infrasound sensors that were set up under the terms of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to check for changes in atmospheric pressure caused by nuclear blasts.
"These new estimates were generated using new data that had been collected by five additional infrasound stations located around the world — the first recording of the event being in Alaska, over 6,500 kilometers away from Chelyabinsk," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.
NASA now says the Chelyabinsk object must have been about 55 feet wide (17 meters wide) with a mass of 10,000 tons before it entered Earth’s atmosphere.
"We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average," Paul Chodas of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office said in the statement. "When you have a fireball of this size, we would expect a large number of meteorites to reach the surface, and in this case there were probably some large ones."
Searchers have been focusing on a frozen lake about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Chelyabinsk, where they suspect meteorite fragments made a 20-foot-wide (6-meter-wide) hole in the ice. Searchers have found fragments up to a half-inch wide (1 centimeter wide) that might have come from the meteor, but nothing bigger yet, according to reports from Russia.
Experts emphasized once again that the meteor's trajectory was significantly different from the path of asteroid 2012 DA14, a 150-foot-wide (45-meter-wide) space rock that passed harmlessly within 17,200 miles (27,600 kilometers) of Earth later Friday. Thus, 2012 DA14 was "a completely unrelated object," NASA said.
The space agency said Friday's Russian meteor was the largest reported since 1908, when an asteroid roughly the size of 2012 DA14 exploded over a remote wooded area in Siberia's Tunguska region. That blast flattened millions of trees over a 820-square-mile area, but was not widely seen. Friday's event, in contrast, took place over a city of 1.1 million inhabitants, and hundreds of millions more watched the videos that were distributed over the Internet.
As powerful as the meteor blast was, it's on the low end of the asteroid impact scale. Astronomers estimate that there are about a million potentially hazardous near-Earth objects smaller than 100 meters (330 feet) in width, and only about 1 percent of those have been cataloged. For the time being, NASA is focusing on detecting and tracking near-Earth asteroids wider than 100 meters.
But what about the smaller ones?
"Defending the Earth against tiny asteroids such as the one that passed over Siberia and impacted there is a challenging issue. That is something that is not currently our goal," Chodas told reporters on Friday.
The asteroid behind Friday's meteor blast would have been particularly hard to spot during its final approach, because it was coming from Earth's daylit side. The asteroid would have been lost in the sun's glare and undetectable by ground-based telescopes, said Bill Cooke, the head of the Meteoroid Environment Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Several programs on the horizon hold the promise of finding the smaller asteroids that could threaten Earth:
- NASA has just started funding the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, which aims to establish two telescopes in Hawaii dedicated to scanning the skies for potential threats.
- The non-profit B612 Foundation has been raising money to launch its Sentinel Space Telescope as early as 2018. Sentinel would scan Earth's surroundings from an outward-looking position in a Venus-like orbit, interior to Earth's orbit. Such a project could provide advance warning for asteroids like the one that blew up on Friday. Former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, one of the foundation's founders, said he was "overwhelmed" by requests for information after Friday's blast. "It's pretty bonkers at the moment," he told NBC News.
- Planetary Resources, a commercial venture, is developing a fleet of Arkyd-100 space telescopes to identify near-Earth asteroids, in hopes of sending mining operations to them in the decades to come. "As the company ultimately develops the capability and infrastructure for intercepting and mining asteroids, Planetary Resources expects to be able to help in the (slight) redirection of these rocks to keep the Earth safe," Peter Diamandis, the company's co-founder and co-chairman, said in a blog posting.
- Another commercial space-mining venture, Deep Space Industries, is proposing its own set of asteroid-hunting space telescopes. "Placing 10 of our small FireFly spacecraft into position to intercept close encounters would take four years and less than $100 million," David Gump, the company's CEO, said in a statement. "This will help the world develop the understanding needed to block later threats."
More about asteroids and meteors:
- Meteor? Asteroid? Terms get tangled
- Russian meteor blast outshone the sun
- System to vaporize asteroids is in the works
- NBCNews.com archive on asteroids
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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I hope this means fewer people questioning the value of a robust space program.
Never have questioned it.... unless you're referring to a manned space program. If anything, this argues for fewer manned efforts and more unmanned programs. Protection of Earth from asteroid impacts has long been on my (figurative) radar. Still, as unusual as this was, it was far from catastrophic and there's no reason to panic.
Actually, just point our telescopes up from Siberia. It seems they have a bullseye for largish meteors.
Learnt,
How about continuing to upgrade our antimissile program?
Dream, It would have been more than catastrophic if it had hit a more populated region.
unmanned or manned, we need to learn more. For some tasks a robot or remote isn't up to it. Antimissile programs ARE space programs, those things are cooking! 1.1 million is fairly populated. It's a good thing it didn't burst closer to the ground.
Russia don't seem to lucky what with the 2 biggest in just over 100 years.
If, as some people believe, the main body of this thing just passed through the atmosphere and never hit the earth, then a repeat is entirely possible in about 365 days. Passing through the atmosphere would have slowed it down, which would change its orbit, but dropping chunks at near-earth approach would give it a gravity assist and could compensate for that. Not necessarily likely, but still worrisome.
Don't know who those scientists were, B. Raum, but that's not possible. If tbhe main body passed through our atmosphere, it would have had to have gotten away again- even barely skating ever so close as to do so would make it as likely as winning the lottery for it to have precisely varied it's vector and orbit as to be a more direct strike upon another orbit.
These strikes I find to be humbling; we've evidence of past major ones, especially Central American regions, that have changed the Earth and Her inhabitants forever more. Reasoning why concerted efforts on such major rocks are, but I do wonder how close (or really, far off) we are from being able to do something about it in real time vs theory, concretely vs. speculation.
I think most of us- by a certain age of maturity and understanding- realize that at some time, for some reason, the human animal population is either going to be extinct or drastically reduced in numbers. It happens throughout our 7 billion year history as one of the life forms on Earth. Growing up in the time period I did, most were led to believe it would be at our own hands, through nuclear warfare, through virally released epidemics.... but, at some point in time I do believe it will be a piece of space rock, perhaps many, many times the size of this one, that will do it.
Of all I've read and watched, I can't think of one scientist that speculated as to whether or not it's an 'if' it's going to happen, but a 'when'.....
Are you saying it's not possible, or that it's very unlikely?
Well, I had a prof in physics that had said if you take apart a watch, put it into a bag and shake it, after X numbers of times in theory it will shake just right to go back together. Hence, the odds; it could happen in a day or two or it may take billions and billions of times, but in theory it is possible and eventually would happen.
I don't know if I'd quite put this on the same scale, but this exact rock coming back given so many variables and coefficients, given that indeed it IS in existence and did lose debris and again, how altered if in existence is it's tragectory, it's velocity and vector.... I'd give it less than chances of winning the lottery.
Not enough in yet per info to determine the likelyhood of it being offspring of the asteroid quoted as 'near miss' (which really can mean distances we can't personally fathom, but numerically can quantify) or not, however. Again, odds... but given 2 strikes in Russia of size in the past 120 years, past habits of belts or groupings of hits that did occur in dinosaur ages and evidence of age in craters, crater sizes, etc.... that we may experience more 'hits' of size are probably a bit more than may intially strike us.
I'd hope unlikely, and we don't know enough about any to be more than speculative; relatively speaking, space knowledge is in it's extreme infancy, including the best minds delving into it. History is what we have to go on, and even that is minimal as much is deduction, not observation (thank god for that!)
What chances would you give three heavenly unrelated bodies all nearly touching each other at earth orbit? As happened day before yesterday?
There are lots of meteors entering the Earth's atmosphere every day. What made the Russian one and 2012 DA14 different was that they were much larger than the average. (The San Francisco one was perhaps slightly larger than average, but not extraordinarily so.)
BTW, it's interesting to calculate the distance between these. The Earth travels 2*pi*93 million miles around the Sun every year, or roughly 600 million miles. If the time between the Russian meteor and the CPA of 2012 DA14 was 14 hours (I think that's the number I heard), then where they crossed the Earth's orbit, they were about 600 million * (14/24)/ 365 miles apart, or about a million miles apart. Close? You decide.
Tell that to President Obama and US Congress (both Senate and House). If you don't President Obama's Demanded (President's Proposal to US Congress) Budget Cuts:
President Obama:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
US Congress:
http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
That too is on President Obama as Commander In Chief Ordered Chops to the US Defense Budget. As:
11% US Defense Budget Cuts; as this also includes the US Anti Ballastic Missile Systems previously funded as demanded by President Bush (43) against "the Iranian Missile Threat".
The loss of US Defense Budget Funds also affects the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, the same people that brought to you the funding for the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) invention of the Computer Mouse (Movable Object USEr) Interface, President Regan's negating of all the USSR Efforts with the "StarWars" Initative, the research into a viable Anti Ballistic Missile System that negated the USSR's Strategic (Nuclear) Missile Forces Superiority (numbers of ICBMs, IRBMs, Missiles (Launch Platforms)).
The Anti Missile Programs are Funded under the US Defense Budget, NOT NASA; and they are NOT cooking, they are operating under a shoe string Budget after President Obama as Commander In Chief Ordered 2009 US Defense Budget Cuts, as to why the US does NOT have Long Range Anti Ballistic Missile Capabilities, only Short Range to Medium Range. Translation, the intercepts occur over the intended ICBM Warhead targets, you miss one and hit a decoy instead tough luck. At the speed of reentry, you have only one chance at Medium Range; and that does not consider the debris (go look how deadly plutonium is).
The US Anti Ballistic Missile System Funding comes directly under the US Military Space Command, US Military North American Aerospace Defense Command.
And President Obama allowed the President Bush previously proposed Budget Cut of NASA and the Space Shuttle Program. Pertaining to the NASA Space Shuttle, you do NOT get rid of something until you have an Operational replacement (the Space Shuttle was not just flying NASA Astronauts to the International Space Station, there were the "Classified" ST Missions and if you think the Russian Federation is going to allow the US to use their capabilities to do the "Classified" ST Mission, naive.).
ModerationInAllThings,
Instead of all of your posts (sounding like a Politician); just tell them, same as your post #2.9:
One to two day warning, yes it could be enough to fully evacuate the blast area. The downside is you have quite a few refugees without homes, supplies and infrastructure. What if one of these hit a major city? How well would a country continue to function (economy for example) if all of New York, Moscow, England, Berlin or Paris were vaporized? Not the people mind you, but the human infrastructure built up in those cities - hundreds of years of manpower derived structures lost.
Warnings are a good first step. But I sure "hope" (haha) governments start thinking long term insurance in the form of ways of deflecting/destroying asteroids.
Also don't forget that a 2 day warning is not enough time to evacuate... the earth.
But please lets not stop fighting each other over global warming, gun control, taxes and sports doping. These are clearly much more important issues than the earth getting cracked in half.
Still much better than getting blown away.
Anna,
Absolutely, its a good first start. But we have already had serious disasters in the "modern" era, and while warning systems DID save many lives, they are only a first step.
As a species, how can we work to deflect or even prevent disasters? Will we always toss our hands up and say "its a natural disaster, the act of god, there is nothing we can do" or will we try to prevent disasters - saving lives and effort?
I am not trying to complain that warning systems are a bad idea, on the contrary I like the idea. I am just interested in what comes next, after a warning system is in place?
Do we have the technology, resources and manpower to fight disasters like this the same way we fight fire, flu and floods?
"We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average," Paul Chodas of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office said in the statement. "When you have a fireball of this size, we would expect a large number of to reach the surface, and in this case there were probably some large ones."
If this turns out to be true I pity us! They used to say that about a 100 year snowfall or thunderstorm and we have all seen how often that 100 year storm seems to show up lately. Now those storms are happening every few years or so.
For once I hope they are wrong on the averages, If this thing had hit in a large city the death toll would have been huge and that's is what would worry be about there expecting it to occur once every 100 years or so on average.
I used to fear a 100 year flood, a 100 year snowstorm, a 100 year tornado/hurricane outbreak etc etc. If these fireballs/meteorites start happening more often then the world as we know it is gonna be changing very very quickly and there isn't squat we can do about it.
Wonder if we can get an insurance policy for these things? Yikes!
Russia will fry first its home grown to atheism..
No question that finding ways to deflect asteroids is important, but it's certainly not an excuse to fail to act on global warming, which is far more likely to have global consequences in the next century or two than an asteroid.
muddie, the media have a strong self-interest in having hundred-year storms, fireballs, flu seasons, whatzits occur much more often, so these things will almost always be overstated. That said, this was unusual by generational standards and I can forgive a modest measure of hyperbole. Very odd, the confluence of the asteroid near-miss and this meteor strike, but they cannot possibly be related. Who needs Elvis clones when you have reality?
We are not wrong on the averages. Climate scientists have correctly predicted the rise in the severity of storms; larger storms are happening more frequently.
There is also no indication that scientists are wrong about the probability of being hit by a meteor.
It rains on the faithful and the heathen.
@No liberty;
I do agree with the bulk of what you've stated. We do need to multi task, however, because taxes, economy, and eco responsibility are quite important. They affect us and our future generations; Clowngress is doing enough do try and distract and divide while going about their corporate business. As in my first post in section #1, I too wonder what could really be done now or even decades from now if a massive rock was to have Earth in it's sights.
I don't believe natural disasters equate to any as to the will of a god but some I do believe cannot be denied no matter what means we'd attempt to employ. Good Ole' Faithfull and the area surrounding, when a massive, domino effect eruption occurs, is one example. Other volcanic areas, the Ring of Fire, affect on tectonic plate shifts very deep and shallower as well.... some things we cannot stop, prevent, or really predict (until it's too late if any are poised to be 'the big one').
What could really be done about a piece of space real estate the size of Ohio? I don't know...
Already previously calculated during the "Cold War" (1945 to 1990), that was not enough time then, and is not enough time now.
Multiply the effect of this (linked video) of 10 Kilo Tons, the meteor of 500 Kilo Tons (from the Article), change the blast radius from a less effective ground burst (of the linked video) to a more effective air burst.
10 Kilo Ton Ground Burst Effect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCme_K6MYLY
All those years of training and experience with Nuclear (Weapons) Physics, Missiles (including ABMs, NASA, etc.), Biological (Epidemiology), Chemical; before switching US Military Officer Career Field were/are good for something, not only the analysis of the Redacted stuff.
This is why during the "Cold War" Era, most of everything was "Dispersed" at the USSR; and what the US eventually did also. Of course everyone at the US forgot, and as cost cutting measures (transportation, fuel, redundancy, etc.) everything was reconsolidated.
As far as effects, from personal experience I would be more worried about what we did to the Iraqis during 2002 Operation Hotel California that plunged 20th Century Iraq into the Stone Ages. Everything that was electric and not in a completely 100% grounded Faraday Cage or metal box fried.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125336&page=1
In the case of the US, we do not make most of the microprocessors, electrical components (diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.) within the US anymore, meaning the Chinese will have the US by the testicles.
The fine print on the Insurance Policy, "Act of God" (or Act of Nature), that relieves the Insurance Corporation of any Liabilities.
Technology: Had, most was being developed and later negotiated away under the ABM Treaty, etc.. Didn't you ever wonder why, the Israelis came up with the "Iron Dome" (think how small those Hamas missiles are, that are still detected and intercepted), and not the US.
The technology previously negotiated away by the US Politicians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vq4mWyYl2Y
Intercepts external to the Earth's Atmosphere (ICBM Warheads). Medium to Long Range.
Intercepts within the Earth's Atmosphere (IRBM Warheads). Short to Medium Range.
Resources: Most Strategic Resources (minerals, materials, etc.) Worldwide Lost due to President Obama's Failed Foreign Policies, to the Chinese and Russian Federation.
Manpower: President Obama as Commander In Chief Ordered US Defense Budget Cuts, Reduction In Forces of 90,000 US Military Personnel, Unemployment of 108,000 DOD US Civilians. Basically, US Military chopped by 50% (and yes, that does include the States National Guard Federal Funding (those that would be used by as State's Governor (as their Commander In Chief) to (proactive measure) evacuate or to respond (reactive) to this type of Disaster). Result Secretary of Defense Penetta tendered his Letter of Resignation and stated that he was going to go work on his (Walnut) Farm with a different kind of "Nut".
As Human Nature: P.....A.....N....I.....C.
No one so far mentioned one very important thing, the density of the meteors. As a low density large easily detected that more than likely will burn up versus a high density (heavy metal) small hard to detect that will not burn up. Also see Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News post#3.2..
As far as frequency of meteor impacts why not ask Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News; just what percentage is actually detected by amateurs (that have detected most of the Near Earth Objects).
Too Human Centric; how about doing the Historical Research into Pre Industrialization (the Historical Records of Weather).
Lusitania's wrote the following rubbish:
All atheism is is the lack of theos/theism. Towards any faith all those outside said faith are atheists. This includes you. There are those who lack all theos/theism.
I don't have a problem with any of them. So why do you?
Through the soviet era churches remained open and there were, and are, multitudes following various faiths.
Learnt observed;
"It rains on the faithful and the heathen. post 2.8"
To those of all "Faiths" everyone else is, by definition, heathen or some other derogatory term. Many "Faiths" promise dire and eternal consequences for worshipping other deity(ies) or for not worshipping in the proper fashion, or some other "reason". So there are none in the various "Heavens". All are in the various "Hel/Hell(s)". The question arises if these various "Celestial Toddlers" pass around their victim toys?
Why does the author of the article interchange asteroid and meteor? It's one or the other.
Unless it was an astereor
The meteor was caused by an exploding asteroid. This is what an asteroid strike looks like, if the asteroid is made of stony materials and is not super-humongous. If the asteroid is made of iron and nickel, that metal will survive all the way down. Also, I suppose large chunks of a 6-mile-wide asteroid like the one that did in the dinosaur might hang together as they reach the surface.
There is some overlap in the definitions of meteor and asteroid, and this object can accurately be described as either, or both.
Alan -- don't you mean that the meteorite was caused by an exploding meteoroid?
An asteroid is a rock that flies by but does not enter the atmosphere. A meteor enters the atmosphere and either burns up or it hits the eath, at which point it becomes a meteorite.
Not a bad rule of thumb, Gumps, but I think the object would still be called an asteroid if it entered the atmosphere, just as the 6-mile-wide asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs would still be an asteroid. That asteroid would have given rise to one heck of a meteor fireball (which describes the visual phenomenon).
I think meteoroid works, but at 55 feet wide, we're starting to talk about something in the asteroid class. That's bigger than your typical space boulder.
ppppppppppppppppppp
There's overlap in a lot of astronomic terms. The most recent example being the definition of planet. It was a term originally used to describe stars in the sky that didn't stay in one place. Then later, we learned what they really are and the terminology had to be refined. Some asteroids are so big they are considered dwarf planets. Some asteroids show signs of outgasing and might be considered comets, some comets have settled into orbits where they're now considered asteroids. Some planets are so big they they blur the line between planet and star...brown dwarfs. There is some hydrogen fusion taking place within them. And then they "go out" when the supply of hydrogen is depleted and are just planets. White dwarfs are stellar remains which are no longer fusing anything and they're as small as planets, but shine as bright as stars because they're so hot. Not sure if they can be considered stars, especially when the cool down that they don't emit light any longer. So...there is a lot of gray area between astronomical classifications.
You should see my asteroids the morning after a Mexican meal!
My proctologist gave them a big thumbs up!
Hey Gumps - just love your wiener!!!!!
Hold the phone on the dinosaur asteroid thing. Spectral analysis of the rocks and dust in the layers where the dinosaurs died out seem to indicate volcanoes, such as the super-volcano of Sumatra, and other super-volcanoes. Not that the asteroid didn't do damage, it did. Maybe it even set off the earth shaking so much that caused the super-volcanoes to go off.
Mr. Boyle,
If NASA (as they proclaim) can monitor space debris as small as a bolt within the satilite belt, why couldn't they detect something as large as a bus coming in ?
By the way, it was not a great meteorite that done in the dinosaur. The dinosaur simply fell victim to it's own existence, a theory we will come to better understand as the years roll by, The dinosaur consumed, destroyed and contaminated the very habitat that provided it life.
As mankind's numbers grow and consume the landmass.........As technology eliminates the need for labor and extends life ever longer.......As the natural resources decline and food supply grows scarce.........As the soil and water become more contaminated and air more polluted.....................................
Maybe man is not quite as smart as he thinks, or maybe he is too smart for his own good.
So..... is it a boat, or a ship? :)
Mr. Boyle:
Because the trajectory of this rock was at a glancing angle, is that why the damage was so low?
thus, if it had a more direct route to the ground, would that have caused more damage? Or, because the rock was literally rock and not metal, the full mass would never have reached the earth?
Just curious.
Monkey,
Scientist say the damage was minimal because the meteor exploded some 12 to 15 miles above earth.
Alan,
Scientist say it is asteroid while in space, a meteor once it enters Earth's atmosphere and meteorite once it hits the ground, something like the chicken and egg I suspect.
It's easy to spot a half in nut among the 3/4 inch nuts from two feet. Finding the half inch nut from the tenth floor when the pile is on the ground is a bit more tricky. Finding the coin that is heads is easy when there are 100 on a table top, put them scattered around an arena and it will take you longer.
For detection via radar the inverse square law applies. Also true of radiant light detections.
"If NASA (as they proclaim) can monitor space debris as small as a bolt within the satilite belt, why couldn't they detect something as large as a bus coming in ?"
It's one thing to be looking for objects in specific orbits around Earth with radar, quite another to find an unexpected rogue object coming in an unknown direction from the outside...
I'd still say it goes to my above posts; also, agree with the theory of volcanism accompanying the asteroid hit, but also believe what's been postulated about the strike in and of itself alone being enough to do them in.
It is always good to know proper verbiage; not knowing can at times make one appear to be ignorant on subject matter.
Note, however.... 'at times'. Can't speak for all, but when semantics and misspellings become topic for arguement even though all understand intent and meaning... 'petty' comes to mind. For the scientists, yes... categorization is important. People affected in Russia don't care if it was a meteor, -ite, asteroid, illegitimate baby momma from Mars..... it was big, bad, and effed up ALOT.
What the geologists stated was that they had analyzed the carbon layers, they speculated these were from volcanoes but did not discount the possibility of the almost "nuclear winter" caused by the blast of the Near Earth Object. The compromise view is that the Near Earth Object may have caused Super Volcanoes, Cracks in the Earth's Crust, Polar Shift and the Pangea Theory. The volcanic ash would had to have literally gone into the high atmosphere to block out the sunlight (those dinosaurs that survived eventually freezing to death, including the woolly mammoths (still worried about the scientists digging up something with an incurable disease.), this is almost negated as , the elephants (ancestors being the woolly mammoths) survived making a Polar Shift the only possible explanation. The question then becomes what caused the Polar Shift.
Exactly. That's the definitions I was always taught and why I made my initial comment. Heck even the NYT published that kind of summation (with links) right after the event to alleviate confusion.
It seems people these days adjust terminology either from lack of knowledge of the actual meanings of the individual words or to cover up being caught out...
Isn't this how the movie War of the Worlds started
I think it started with someone seeing bright flashes of light on Mars through a telescope, not knowing that it was the Martians launching their ships. But I'm not sure. Maybe the author just said, "If someone had been looking at Mars through a telescope that night....."
Right idea. Wrong movie. More likely little creatures with large heads like in Mars Attacks.
Better get your Slim Whitman yodeling recordings ready!
This thing was a third of the size of the one that just went whizzing past us. How much damage would it have done?
The one that went whizzing past us was much like the Tunguska asteroid, and if it exploded right above Tunguska with a 2.4-megaton blast, we can assume it would have knocked down buildings ... rather than just breaking the glass.
Good question, and I am no expert, but lets see what kind of comparisons I can find on the web...
Lets start with Joules, a unit of work.
1 joule being equivalent to the energy needed to lift a small apple 1 meter in the air, or the heat a person gives off every 1/60th of a second. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joules
Lets put this in terms of bullet muzzle energy, the AR-15, a commonly cited firearm in the news fires a 5.56mm with a muzzle energy around 1800 joules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzzle_energy
So being shot point blank by an AR-15 would be roughly equivalent to having 1800 apples fall on you from 1 meter in height
What about a car crash? If we take a 2,000lb car traveling at 65mph, we have 383,748 Joules of kinetic energy http://www.vcu.edu/cppweb/tstc/crashinvestigation/kinetic.html
Released all at once, this is equal to 213 shots from an AR-15 (talk about high-capacity!)
Lets scale this up further, 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of TNT releases about 4MJ, that's 4,000,000 Joules of energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite
Thats about 10 high speed car accidents, or 2,200 shots from an AR-15
One kiloton of TNT releases 4.184×1012 J (thats 4,184,000,000,000 Joules), and one metagon of TNT releases 4.184×1015 J (thats 4,184,000,000,000,000 Joules). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent
Now lets look at large scales. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima released an estimated ~15kt of TNT, so 62,760,000,000,000 Joules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
This article cites an estimate of 500 kt TNT released by this stone in Russia, that's ~2,000,000,000,000,000 Joules
A large earthquake (7.5) releases around 10,000,000,000,000,000 Joules http://www.convertalot.com/earthquake_power__calculator.html
The one that missed us, 2012 DA14, was estimated to have an air burst energy of 2.8 MetaTons of TNT or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_DA14, which is about the same as the 7.5 earthquake. or 12,000,000,000,000,000 Joules
This is roughly equivalent to 6.7 TRILLION AR-15 rifle shots.
What happens to this energy all depends on how suddenly it is released, and what medium it passes into (air, ground etc...) and what absorbs it, (a body of water, people, crumple zones).
Keep in mind that the Sun bathes us in 3,850,000 exaJoules/year, or 3,850,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules per year or 122,000,000,000,000,000 Joules per SECOND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
That's right, the energy of 1967 Hiroshima Bombs per second are falling on the earth.
Gentle, kind nature, please welcome me into your warmth.
Food for thought.
http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/
Really great to measure in Hiroshimas. American mass murder as system of measurement.
DOU44: It is the only nuclear device used on humans, if you exclude the experiments made in the Nevada desert that involved American troops.
Monkey
Don't forget Nagasaki ... and it was a different, larger bomb than Hiroshima
DOU44...it is a known comparison of energy released in a large explosion, that the public can relate to. Should we measure in Pearl Harbors? You know, the Japanese mass murder? Or maybe Trade Centers, Muslim Mass murders? Or any other attack that killed thousands? Your reference to this part of it was pointless, get over your useless views.
Maybe we should just use "megatonnage" - this one was about 1/2 megaton (the normal load on most US Missile warheads)
useless views?
Pearl harbor was a military target. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities in which tens of thousands of civilians--women and children--were killed. I think there is room in this discussion to mention that yes, we did kill tens of thousands of women and children in WWII.
Anything less and you dishonor the memory of the victims. Japan committed atrocities in Manchuria as well, but that cannot justify the use of nuclear warheads on civilians.
It must make us feel better that we have the conviction that oh, we`ve never done anything wrong in the past. Type in Hiroshima in a search engine and look at some photo evidence of what happened before you classify it as `useless views`. America did slaughter those people. You can`t forget that kind of thing
actually, the fact that they`re dead makes it easy to forget them. But the fact that we`ve forgotten them doesn`t make what we did any less wrong.
Let's get a couple of points straight., here. FIRST - it WAS a WAR (whether you like it or not and the object of elimination of civilians ability to produce items for that war effort produced a "destroy everything - there is no collateral damage" mentality) SECOND - whether you realize it or not, the mostly German ancestry many jewish scientists who developed the bombs were HIGHLY upset when Germany surrendered. Their PRIMARY target was Berlin (their own little "vergeltungswaffe"). That actually would have induced a surrender on the part of Japanese and those particular bombings would have never happened. THIRD - invasion of the Japanese home islands would have produced perhaps a MILLION Japanese dead and many more wounded with an associated US casualty rate in the 100,000 range (not accounting for many more wounded) IT WAS THE LESSER OF 2 EVILS (true, not a desirable "lesser", but STILL more effective in the long run.
Go READ your history. I don't LIKE it, but it HAPPENED that way
NoLiberty!
This seems high by factor of 100, 19.67 makes more sense.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets. Just because they weren't soldiers doesn't mean they weren't building the war machines for the Japanese military.
The Japanese were far from innocent in the war having murdered hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians in biological warfare experiments.
And in any type of large scale warfare involving governments with a powerful military, (not the guerrilla wars we have seen lately) attacking the civilian populations that support the enemy government is a valid strategy.
Yeah the lesser of 2 evils, one of which is hypothetical.
Whatever makes you feel better. I guess some people have a hard time questioning whether what their country did in the past was right or not.
If it was such a good move, why don`t we just nuke all our enemies off the face of the earth. Then there would be no one left to make us feel bad about ourselves. Not that I feel bad or anything. I just choose not to pat myself on the back for dropping nukes on people.
Actually I do "read my history". I like to compare the justifications that empires have had for the atrocities that they commit. Usually it goes something like this: `"it is necessary." the romans used to say necesses est. "This will prevent more deaths in the end. They hit us first, even though really we hit them first". And stuff like that. Have a nice day, everyone.
"Don't forget Nagasaki ... and it was a different, larger bomb than Hiroshima"
Yes, but contrary to what you might intuitively think, there's not much difference between a 10 and 20 kiloton device.
Nuclear weapon damage and effects don't increase linearly with the explosive force of the bomb, but proportional to the 2/3 power. So, a 100 kiloton bomb isn't 10 times as bad as 10 kiloton device, but only about 4 times as much. When you get much above 10 megatons or so, you start reaching a point of diminishing returns, because the size/weight of the weapon, does increase in a more linear manner, all other things being equal.
Oh, and the vast majority of injuries in Russia were from blast-shattered flying glass. (some rushed to windows to see the trail, only to be in the worst possible place when the shockwave hit)
This is why you were told as a student (if you're old enough) to get under your desk in the event of an impending nuclear attack. Not because it would do much for you in the event of a nearby hit, that's obvious nonsense. But to give you some protection from being sliced up in the same way from a more distant detonation (and to reduce the chance of flash burns).
Glass windows will be the most likely structural material to fail, in a building that otherwise receives little or no damage. They know this in earthquake-prone places, too.
"If it was such a good move, why don`t we just nuke all our enemies off the face of the earth."
For the same political/ethical reasons we don't use the maximum possible conventional force in every case, either...
so your premise is that the invasion of the home islands was HYPOTHETICAL? The ground work had been done and all that was needed was the gathering of forces and boats. Okinawa was established as the forward aircraft launching point (well within unrefueled range of particularly the southern island of KYUSHU - the primary target). The invasion was supposedly scheduled for April 1946 with resumption of substantial bombing beginning in September. EVERY AIRFIELD was to be destroyed. EVERY military depot was to be attacked. ANYTHING mechanical that moved was to be ATTACKED... That's in the history archives. The wartime Japanese were DEVOTED to the point of approaching fanaticism and the BANZAI attacks (and possibly mass suicides as was seen on Okinawa) were expected. Even AFTER the atomic attacks, there was an EXTREME reluctance on the part of the Japanese high command to CONSIDER surrender (just considering it was an execution offense); thus when Hirohito went on the radio saying that it was OVER, many Japanese senior officers committed hara-kiri (KNOWING FULL WELL THAT THEIR FATE UNDER THE POST WARTIME WAR CRIMES JUDGMENT WAS DEATH IN ANY EVENT)
Like I said - I don't LIKE it (I've been to Hiroshima, by the way back in the mid 50's, not that it has any bearing on this discussion); however, given the choice between 2 "bad" options, the object is to pick the one that is the least onerous.
RichMJones,
Thank you for checking my math, you are correct I am off by a factor of 100 there, only 19.67 Hiroshima bombs worth of energy falling on the earth from the sun per second - thank you!
We're on notice to plan for the next meteor"
Who are WE ???
This has nothing to do with the USA alone, it is a threat from space by random asteroids on Planet Earth. So instead of building missiles in Poland to protect against IRAN ,(what a joke) Our idiot Politicians and our WAR crazed Pentagon, should join Russia and China and Japan and Germany and England etc, and pool resources , to design a shield and a monitoring system ,that may stop the next asteroid from hitting our planet with possible catastrophic global DEATH.
But that will not happen . Why because of our flag waving and parochial mind set . The real threats to our species and our Planet , will come in a plague, or asteroid collision , not some mickey mouse WAR created by fanatical politicians . And we have plenty of fanatical politicians here on the US. and other countries too.
Yes, the Iranians are such a peace-loving country with no ill will toward anyone (unless you're Jewish, that is).
You know, we can protect against Iran and North Korea AND still work on an asteroid defense program.
who knows - maybe the next small one will impact in some "undesired" county
"Who are WE ???
This has nothing to do with the USA alone..."
Yes, but you can count the number of countries with the actual technological capability to do something about right now (oh, and partly because of all that 'war craziness') it on one hand...and still have two or three fingers left over.
"The real threats to our species and our Planet , will come in a plague..."
And we also already have a 'Center for Disease Control' in Atlanta. The name spells out its mission pretty clearly.
What's your point?
Alan Boyle: Nice follow up responses to questions about your story. Good job.
NASA claims that the Russian meteorite is unrelated to the
larger asteroid. The odds against this seem, well... astronomical. Isn’t it
more likely that this meteor split off from the larger asteroid at some point
in the past and separated enough to allow it to fly by the earth on the opposite
side from the larger asteroid, and much closer to the earth? So close, in fact, that it was pulled into an arcing path that took it over the pole and then southward across Russia. This accounts for the meteorite's opposite trajectory to the larger asteroid.
An asteroid composed of a main body plus surrounding fragments, spread not only to the side but also leading and trailing, will encounter Earth in this fashion. In this scenario, Earth passes through a stream of debris that could extend for thousands or hundreds of thousands of miles.
When you're dealing with astronomical phenomena, I would think atronomical odds are not a particularly useful standard of unlikelihood.
Well, if you're going to use the "past" as your standard of what is related, then a great deal of what hits the earth every day is related, coming from the same dust cloud that formed into the solar system.
No tinman.
These people know what they are talking about.
Mitchell
If they were related they would be going in the same direction. They weren't.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's "infinite improbability drive." You need a Vogon ship first...
What are the chances this meteorite is another Martian rock like many others some claim came from Mars ? How can scientist possibly determine a rock came from Mars and nowhere else, especially since we have not yet analyzed rocks from every where else yet ?
Tinman: That's what I thought (and was thoroughly slashed on the blogs the other day).
It makes sense, actually, that this isn't related as they are coming from completely different points in the sky. However, feel free to question. It's always fun at dinner parties.
From http://www.lifeinuniverse.org/MMorigin-06-01-06-03.html :-
We haven't heard from the Fox News science guy yet. "It was just God throwing rocks at the atheists in Russia"
nah - that's EXPECTED from the 'Murcun fundy idiots... like one of these megachurche$ in Texass
"NASA claims that the Russian meteorite is unrelated to the
larger asteroid. The odds against this seem, well... astronomical. Isn’t it"
NASA has no monopoly on telescopes. (indeed, government funded observatories don't get their money through NASA, but IIRC, the NSF) Nor does the United States.
Plenty of other nations and individuals can tell you via their OWN observations (including the Russians themselves) that the highly different directions they came from, make them unrelated.
Sorry, but you don't have to be 'in space,' for the Universe to try to kill you in more then one way.
"in the past and separated enough to allow it to fly by the earth on the opposite
side from the larger asteroid..."
Yeah. I could believe an intelligent extraterrestrial influence, before I could believe the laws of gravity, motion and inertia would suddenly go crazy enough to permit that...
Don't get your physics from cartoons.
Byron,
Even so, without the ability to analyse rocks from the trillions plus bodies in the universe, or ability to compare make-up, there is no rational way to say a particular meteorite is unique to mars. No more so than we can say a DNA is unique to a particular family, the best we can determine is percentage of probability.
And with all due respect, we still know very little definitively about the overall make up of Mars.
All those telescopes sound fine but will they be able to see and track asteroids between the earth and the sun? Doubtful. Also, almost all the asteroids already tracked pose little risk to the earth. A 100 meter wide asteroid Nickle/Iron would wipe out an areas likely the size of New York. Not a world killer but tough if you live in a New York. The reason they are not tracking anything that size is because they cannot see them. Likely 10,000 times the number of 100 meter and less asteroids than any larger ones.
Almost any asteroid that gets close enough to Earth to pose a risk will at some point have enough angular separation from the sun to be visible in the night sky. But you're right that it isn't easy to find them, especially the smaller ones.
Read up on the B-6-12 project (not sure of exact name; they could have made it simpler). They are interested in putting a satellite around the sun to look back on the solar system and track asteroids from there. This isn't NASA, but anybody who wants to contribute to the project. They are seriously raising funds from citizens, because no government on earth thinks it is important enough to waste the money on tracking the asteroids! Anybody can contribute to this project; better than throwing away money on building a bunker that won't protect you from an impact blast anyway.
The chunk that made the meteor crater in Arizona was about the size of this one (a "boxcar"). The trajectory was VERTICAL, though. This one was tangential and it exploded from the rapid heating
Of course, NASA/NOAA still has it "all wrong" about AGW, according to the Republican Party.
That's because you can't blame asteroids on people and fossil fuel usage. Science is seen as reliable until it questions someone's ideology, at which point the scientific method is suddenly "flawed."
Follow the money.
Any three points can determine a trend. Connect any two of them and throw out the third as an outlier. That's a joke but it's not so funny, is it?
problem is that statistically, 3 points with one discarded is essentially RANDOM. It's the basis for A LUCKY GUESS
Typically, a bullet leaves a gun barrel at about the speed of sound. This 10,000 ton object hit Earth's atmosphere at 43 times the speed of sound, according to initial speed estimates. I am awed by these figures, glad injuries and damages were not worse.
When it comes to protecting ourselves from inbound space objects we need to consider the probabilities of such events against the actual costs of a space object warning system. Passenger cars could be built with NASCAR driver protection features. Passengers would be safer, but such cars would be far too costly for most car buyers. Can we afford to spend vast sums of money to construct and maintain a warning system for a single low probability event, one that may never happen in our lifetime? Car accidents kill tens of thousands of people in the U.S., every year. Safe to say NASCAR driver protection features would save thousands of those lives, but the financial cost of putting those features in all cars would bankrupt us.
If NASCAR drivers would just slow down, their cars could be a LOT cheaper.
True about Nascar Bill, and my argument to follow is very simplified and flawed, but consider this...
How much wealth is generated at a Nascar event? And by that I do not mean money, that tangible measure of assumed worth, I mean how many goods do we get out of a Nascar event? By goods you could say resources, food, water, air, etc... and also joy - the wealth generated by Nascar is the joy of the spectators and the racers. brings them happiness, which has a substantial if hard to quantify effect on their lives.
What about going into space? If we just go up there to plug in a warning system, yes there is a cost associated with that. But doing so - going to space merely to install a warning system is like Columbus reaching the Americas, building a tall signal fire, and leaving.
There are untold riches in space. Trillions of times more water, diamonds, gold, iron, carbon (you know, the stuff food is made of), oxygen, hydrogen, etc than there are on the Earth.
There is no such thing as "precious natural resources" when we have comets flying through the solar system with more water in them that the human race can drink in a year. The only precious resource is the human body, and the wonderful things it can do. We colonized earth, and may have started to terraform it, it would be nice to practice terraforming on another world in case we have unfavorable results. It would also be nice to eliminate want.
So where really is the expense? Did America bankrupt Europe? How much did it bankrupt the caveman to take over the next valley? Expanding human habitation has been the rule, not the exception, and if we never did it, we would not be the dominant species on the planet today.
Lets put a station on the moon to monitor asteroids, lets build mines on the moon, heck maybe there is oil. Anyone opposed to a new country that everyone can do business with? And independent colony of the Moon can trade with the world by supplying unique compounds made in low gravity. How is this any stranger that the world currently trading with country X for resource Y?
Getting way off topic today, but that's what happens when you fall ill to the flu :)
If they raced pedal cars, the races would really be safe, cheap and hilarious to watch. Hehe.
They don't want gold and carbon; too cheap. They want platinum and iridium and other rare earths found not on earth but in meteors. Fast-moving objects are too expensive to mine, but those slow ones that aren't going in a much different orbit than earth's, now those are tempting. Too bad that the rail gun and other handy devices that could be used for space mining were put out of commission because it was feared they would be used for wars on earth. We really need some anger management down here, don't we?
We can resurrect the rail gun when the time is right. There's no hurry regarding the mining of asteroids.
Very insightful post NoLiberty! :)
I feel the same. Space is a treasure trove with virtually unlimited supplies. We just need people to get their act together.
Hope you feel better.
Actually, I don't think NASCAR vehicles even have the airbags we now take for granted.
When you're willing to sit in a beefed up metal frame, wear a flame-resistant suit, a full crash helmet, a full harness (not just lap and shoulder belts) throw out stock vehicle parts like passenger seats, yes you can be a lot safer...in a car that would have little use for normal driving (and it may not even be street-legal...remember the Disney/Pixar film 'Cars,' when the main character, a NASCAR-like car, found himself on a dark desert road...but he had no headlights, because he'd never been out at night other than on a lighted track?).
NASCAR vehicles are "stock" cars only skin deep (they LOOK like regular cars, they run on gasoline and have tires). The comparison ENDS there...
So, can I start selling meteor insurance in Russia.
In the meantime, I think I'll take over the world, by taking over the moon first and throwing rocks at people who annoy me. If they come to my terms (which I have not decided on as yet) I will cheerfully destroy the projectile and provide an interesting light show instead.
Think out of the box!
Got a rocket in your pocket?
Didn't think so.
Keep coolly cool, boy.
Those objects they shoot back at you will not be rocks, but they will produce some similar fireworks...
...ummm so where are the rock fragments...i guess the fake ones are already on ebay
They can tell the fakes because the fakes won't have the extraterrestrial metals such as platinum and iridium.
Also, they have 'Made in China' stamped on the underside...
Elizabeth, not all meteorites are metallic...
What a day yesterday! Three space rocks in the news! Thanks for the coverage Alan.
Interesting. The revised energy release for this object is now half a megaton. That Is the average yeild of standard US deployed thermonuclear warheads on our strategic nuclear missiles. Indeed, The W88 warhead deployed on our trident ballistic missile submarine is rated at 475kt. This is a weapon that is intended to destroy an average size city. Had this asteroid struck the heart of downtown Moscow, it would have destroyed most of the metropolitan area and killed perhaps a million people.
Yes, but they have to hit the ground in order to do that. They lose a lot of their mass in the atmosphere, and are usually destroyed by it...as was the case here and in Tunguska.
Also, a nuclear blast has a more devastating effect because of nuclear radiation and more intense heat (millions of degrees at the blast center versus thousands of degrees for an asteroid blast). Nonetheless, the multi-megaton Tunguska event was devastating over a wide area of forest due to blast alone.
Blast alone will take out any bunker hundreds of feet deep. Tunguska took out 820 square miles of trees, blown down in a direction away from the center. That's over 25 miles across; a lot of area, and it would have taken out most major cities.
the angle of entry (almost said re-entry, but this is a "non-earth object") would need to be close to vertical for it NOT to break up in the atmosphere. This one was tangential based on the videos.
"Yes, but they have to hit the ground in order to do that."
No, they don't. Neither for large meteors, nor for nukes.
In fact, blast and radiant thermal effects are enhanced by detonation above ground, where you don't 'waste' part of the energy by digging a hole in the ground, unless your target is underground, like a missile silo or command center. Otherwise, air-bursts are superior for knocking down structures. We knew this from day one, it's how Hiroshima and Nagasaki wee attacked, and an important part of the bomb development was creating a means of triggering it at the desired altitude.
This is true of conventional weapons, too. The German V-1 cruise missile was often more damaging for its ability to come in at a shallow angle and detonate on first structural impact, as opposed to the V-2 ballistic rocket that tended to bury itself deep into structures before exploding, creating deep craters, and sending more of its force back upward. In Vietnam, we sometimes used a very large, cargo-plane delivered bomb that used a three-foot probe to insure it's detonation just above ground, that blasted vegetation away, creating instant helicopter landing zones, with no cratering.
Look at the Tunguska photos, the air-bursting object there blew trees down in a very large, and obviously radial pattern...save for a small stand of trees that were right at ground zero. Instead of catching the trees at a side angle, the force there went straight down their trunks, stripping their branches.
If a nuclear weapon is detonated at a height greater than the maximum radius of its 'fireball' we call that an air burst. From there to the surface is a 'ground burst,' For nuclear weapon purposes, anything above 100,000 feet is considered a 'space burst,' and the physics start to become very different...
and no matter what - when there is a nuke burst, there is an accompanying MAGNETIC PULSE
Frank,
Fair enough. But the kind of air bursts you're talking about are only effective if they are "near" the surface. My point is that most of them burn up very high in the atmosphere where they are not much a threat to ground based infrastructure.
"and no matter what - when there is a nuke burst, there is an accompanying MAGNETIC PULSE"
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is also only an issue for high altitude detonations. As I said, the physics become very different there.
IN OTHER NEWS: U.S. House of Representatives GOP leadership have proposed cutting taxes on all incoming meteors and space junk as those objects enter the atmosphere at more than 30,000 mph. If this measure is approved, Speaker of the House, John Boehner says that companies with space mining experience (aka Big GOP contributor$$) can mine those supersonic speeding objects (in mid-air) for precious minerals before those objects explode over populated cities. As a result Boehner predict millions upon millions of good paying American & Chinese jobs being created!
IN OTHER NEWS Today: Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh,Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the NRA's Wayne LaPierre were all present today at a hastily called Fox News conference to announce that President Obama’s birth certificate from the planet Mars was recently discovered………………………………
Irrelevant, but slightly funny. Mining can't be these fast-moving objects, but ones that are orbiting with less of a difference in speed from earth. We want platinum and "rare earths." The trouble is, all that Americans want to buy is guns. We killed the professor who was building the long gun for, was it Libya? Or Iraq? Anyway, moot point, professor dead, dictator dead, space program dead, those rare heavy metals are still in demand. Why those mines in Mongolia are making a fortune. I think one in California re-opened. The trouble is, rare earths aren't that rare, but they are much more expensive than gold, and platinum is not found naturally on earth, only from meteor rocks. Too bad that the real Krypton is a gas.
10,000 Tons? 33,000 miles/hour
Kinetic Energy, E = (1/2) M * V^2
Thats 20 million pound, quite the large number?
May I suggest that somebody check this. I would do it myself but it seems so off, I'd have to be asked.
If iron would be like 33.4 feet on the edge of a cube or if stone 52 feet on the edge if a cube.
Based on 10,000 Tons and 33,000 miles/hour it comes to 235,936 Tons of TNT (236 Kilo Tons) not 500 kt (perhaps someone missed the 1/2?)
As to 15 or 30 times Hiroshima some difference in altitude thiner air would be expected (unknown as of yet). The difference in intensity would be expected since the nuclear bomb fires almost instantly, where as the reported 32.5 second flight time would spread out the energy. The bright bursts need to rated.
That leaves 20,000,000 pounds of material unaccounted for, or was it water?
I think they should try to track at least on of the smaller, more common, asteroids for practice. Make plan to shoot one down, if the need arise, and give it a whack.
"Make plan to shoot one down, if the need arise, and give it a whack."
Actually, you want to shoot it such that it goes somewhere other than down here...
55 foot meteor, but 26 foot hole in the ice (picture 10). Either a lot burned off (didn't look like it), or it broke into parts.
30 Hiroshimas would probably do some breaking apart, yes.
well, gee - all of that "smoke" came from SOMEWHERE (oxidized "stuff")
Thirty times the Hiroshima blast? And where are the square miles of flattened trees, the pancaked buildings, the thousands of casualties? Point is, somebody needs to start asking these scientists about their methodology. If you've got a sensor that shows that much force but there's no real world evidence for it, something is wrong with your sensor. But hey, it makes a great headline, and that's what it's all about, right?
Either that or you are missing something important. Like the blast wasn't on the ground.
Hiroshima blast was not on ground either 1,980 feet was the detonation altitude.
Tunguska was an airburst, too. The height of the blast is important.
I think it`s extremely offensive to measure in `hiroshimas`. The reason is because only 1000 people were hurt by broken glass in this case, whereas the hiroshima blast killed 100,000 people or more and left tens of thousands without homes or suffering from radiation poisoning.
This article makes it seem like Hiroshima `wasn`t really that bad. We didn`t kill almost 100,000 civilians when that bomb went off--it just shattered a couple of windows. This asteroid had 30 times more energy released.` Yeah right! What a pile of baloney. Dream on, but Hiroshima really did happen and one asteroid isn`t going to let you forget about it.
this exploded between 65,000 and 75,000 feet. That mitigated the blast effect to a heavy pressure wave.
cloudy - give it a rest - it's a convenient (but essentially worthless) measurement. Megatons is a "better" scale
Yeah, I know it's just harmless media.
I'm just saying. 1 hiroshima = 50x9.11s. therefore this meteor was 30x50x9.11 is what this article is saying. It's a bit weird.
I don't get this story. It didn't say anything about how this is man's fault or that we caused it. So why would it run on nbsnews.com? Is the editor still working on the angle of how global warming caused this? You know, like how they determined snow is caused by global warming. Hey editors, here is an idea for you, you stupid morons. Let me help you. This meteor is our fault because C02 is a heat trapping gas and this comet was hot. Our atmosphere sucked it in so it could trap it's heat. Sounds about as good as most of the rest of the garbage you publish on this site. I am sure the science is settled on this because 97% of me says so.
Roasted. Fox News awaits you.
Huh?
well... according to chicky, THE SKY IS FALLING!
"I don't get this story. It didn't say anything about how this is man's fault or that we caused it. So why would it run on nbsnews.com?"
So, completely natural disasters aren't news?
Monkey, If it wasn't for the one sided drivel that NBS and the other MSM prints then Fox News would have never made it as a news organization. So in that sense Fox News was created by the incompetence of NBSnews.
NBS? Seriously?
NBC has been around forever. I'd think you could get three letters right. Even if you're a Fox-bot.
No,chicken, Fox was created to coddle the huddled masses that just can't face the truth.
fuchs spews...
If we would have spent just a fraction of the money we wasted on the corrupted climate science field on real threats like this one, then we would already have a meteor/asteroid defense system. And science would still be a respected field.
Whatever you think of climate change, you seriously overestimate how much the research costs...
Perhaps we here on Earth better get our act together. Some one is trying to tell us something. Maybe a bigger one is out there heading for our home planet. Just saying.
There is undoubtedly a bigger one heading for us, just a matter of when it will hit, not if.
yeah... so?