Russian Meteor Largest In a Century

gbrumfiel writes "A meteor that exploded over Russia's Chelyabinsk region this morning was the largest recorded object to strike the earth in more than a century, Nature reports. Infrasound data collected by a network designed to watch for nuclear weapons testing suggests that today's blast released hundreds of kilotons of energy. That would make it far more powerful than the nuclear weapon tested by North Korea just days ago, and the largest rock to strike the earth since a meteor broke up over Siberia's Tunguska river in 1908. Despite its incredible power, the rock evaded detection by astronomers. Estimates show it was likely only 15 meters across — too small to be seen by networks searching for near earth asteroids." Today's meteor event came a day after California scientists proposed a system to vaporize asteroids that threaten Earth. Of course, the process needs to be started when the asteroid is still tens of millions of kilometers away; there's no chance to shoot down something that's already arrived.

Comments

Re:Still overdue

[Jarik C-Bol]

this thing was 15 meters across, jet black, and moving like a bat out of hell. To paraphrase people that look for near earth objects "Its invisible until it hits the atmosphere."

The sad fact of the matter is, no matter how much money you pour into programs to locate and track near earth objects, there is no way to detect objects of this size and velocity with any degree of reliability.