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Meteor Over Midwest
bigpat writes "According to this story in the Chicago Tribune or this article, a meteor estimated to be the size of a 'Volkswagen bug' exploded over the Midwest around midnight yesterday morning. The resulting small meteorites hit homes causing some damage. The largest meteorite collected was 7.5 pounds. So why do astronomers always compare the size of meteors to Volkswagen bugs?"
Ohh me me me - pick me please please pleeeeease me me memememememe!!!
Why not a Ford Pinto?
They explode when they crash....
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Volkswagen? That unit is meaningless to me. How many Volkswagen bugs are there in one Library of Congress?
Move over bacon...now there's something meteor.
Queens of the Stone Age - they rule
"I thought, 'Is it God? Is it an attack? Are we going to die?' The light freaked me out. It felt really funny, like it went through me," she said.
In a statement released later, God denied any involvement in the meteor attack on Chicago, saying he was busy blessing and damning souls at the time. No other supernaturals have commented on the charges, although the leader of the Vulcans stated that attributing the attack to them would, of course, be highly illogical.
Paranormal scientists currently are investigating the Roman and Greek Dieties for involvment, as they could not be found anywhere, perhaps in hiding.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Today a Volkswagen Bug, approximately the size of a meteorite,
From the story:
Garza said he was in bed when heard his dog barking and what sounded like thunder. He got out of bed and was downstairs when the meteor hit.
This morning, he called his boss and told him he wasn't coming into work today. "I told him what happened, and he said, 'Okay, but don't use that excuse again.'"
Now, *that* is a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool, head-up-the-ass boss!
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
Actually, it's because the VW Bug is a common object in American culture, and probably elsewhere in the world as well. When you say "VW Bug", it doesn't take a whole lot of scrabbling around in ones memory to come up with an appropriate mental picture of how large the asteroid is. If someone said 'The size of a Toyota Camry', it would be a bit more difficult--and "The size of a small car" is a tad too open to interpretation. Because the design of the bug (size-wise) has remained consistent for a LONG time, the mental image people get will be consistent with the image astronomers/the media want people to get.
Most people can relate better to an image of "A meteor the size of a volkswagon bug impacted with the moon" rather than "A x ton meteor impacted with the moon". The relationship to a physical object that most people have encountered in their lifetime rather than an abstract measurement of weight, elicits the desired emotional response from people. Awe. If you say "A x-ton meteor", it won't be quite as impressive as saying "A meteor the size of the empire state building", no matter how many tons "x" is.
For abstract numbers, people need a sense of scale. "The new budget for executive toenail clippers is equivalent to the salaries of 1200 secretaries." It's more likely to bring about anger at the stupidity of the budget than a number is.
-Sara
I need to see something like this, from time to time. It reminds me that, on an evolutionary time scale, we just stepped out of the caves a few moments ago.
I'm not saying the human race is doomed. But we do still have one hell of a long road ahead of us. I'm going to read some Sci-Fi now.
-Peter
Nbc 5 has some nice pictures of the meteor. The slideshow is really cool. Spaceweather.com also has some more information concerning it.
I was one of the people that felt and heard the sonic boom it created, my sister witnessed it in the sky.
Injuries were light.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Worse yet, they may mistake my volkswagen beetle for a meteor. :P
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Yes, we should spend money on a metor defense system since they do kill almost 0 people per year.
Assume that:
1. A meteor (of catastrophic size) will strike the Earth every 60 million years or so; and
2. Said meteor would wipe out most of the population if not diverted or destroyed;
3. Assuming a human perceives his life as being worth $5,000,000 in constant dollars (about what Kip Viscusi came up with in a study a number of years ago); and
4. Assuming a population of 10,000,000,000 earthlings, then:
1. The value of human life is approximately 50,000,000,000,000,000, or 50 quadrillion dollars.
2. The chance of being hit by a catastrophic meteor in a given year is 1/60,000,000
3. The average annual cost of a meteorite premium for "Earth insurance" should be about 50,000,000,000,000,000/60,000,000, or $833,333,333.33 in today's dollars.
Conclusion:
A small price to pay on a yearly basis.
Action plan:
Contact FEMA and ask if humanity can purchase a meteor rider for its flood insurance policy, which was issued by God (tm) to some Jews a few thousand years back.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
I agree.
:) We could have milliBug, centiBug, Bug, kiloBug, etc!
Should we have a new metric measurement? The Bug?