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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.
They say to expect a Tunguska sized one once a century and this one wasn't that big. They mostly ocean explode or strike so there's few signs of them but an ocean strike can be worse than a land one given the water they displace. They've got to wake up and start properly funding the near Earth program. It still won't protect against rouges but at least they can map ones that cross our orbit.
In USA, prisoners smash rocks. In Soviet Russia, rocks smashes prisoners!
This one, Tunguska,and one in 1947 called Sikhote-Alin that some are claiming is bigger than yesterday's rock (though still smaller than Tunguska).
Granted, Russia is the largest country in the world by land area but do *all* the big rocks have to land there?
I wouldn't hold my breath.
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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.
The fine summary notes,
Well, there's part of the problem right there -- we don't want to shoot the things *down*, we want to shoot them *up* and *away*. Meteors and asteroids are only a problem when they come down!
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"Meteorite: A meteor that survives its passage through the earth's atmosphere such that part of it strikes the ground."
The kiloton unit came into use to describe the explosive energy of the early nuclear bombs. A one kiloton nuclear explosion released the same energy as a 1000 ton (kiloton) TNT explosion. For people in the 1950's who were used to reading about 500 lb. and 1000 lb bombs used in WWII, it provided a useful mental scale.
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I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Well, what "meteor" actually means (from Greek) is "suspended in the air". So no, technically, the moment it touches ground, it's no longer a meteor. Arguably, meteors and meteorites are meteoroids. That term is usually only used while it's still in space, but technically any such rock in the solar system is a meteoroid, and it's still in the solar system while it's burning through the atmosphere, or sitting on the ground on Earth. A meteorite ceases to be a meteor when it hits ground, but they're both really still meteoroids.
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