Slashdot Mirror
Meteor Blast Over Bering Sea Was 10 Times Size of Hiroshima (theguardian.com)
A meteor explosion over the Bering Sea late last year unleashed 10 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, scientists have revealed. From a report: The fireball tore across the sky off Russia's Kamchatka peninsula on 18 December and released energy equivalent to 173 kilotons of TNT. It was the largest air blast since another meteor hurtled into the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, in Russia's south-west, six years ago, and the second largest in the past 30 years. Unlike the Chelyabinsk meteor, which was captured on CCTV, mobile phones and car dashboard cameras, the December arrival from outer space went largely unnoticed at the time because it exploded in such a remote location. Nasa received information about the blast from the US air force after military satellites detected visible and infrared light from the fireball in December.
Lindley Johnson, a planetary defense officer at Nasa, told BBC News that blasts of this size were expected only two or three times a century. The space agency's analysis shows that the meteor, probably a few metres wide, barrelled into Earth's atmosphere at 72,000mph and exploded at an altitude of 16 miles. The blast released about 40% of the energy of the meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk, according to Kelly Fast, Nasa's near-Earth objects observations programme manager, who spoke at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science conference near Houston.
Lindley Johnson, a planetary defense officer at Nasa, told BBC News that blasts of this size were expected only two or three times a century. The space agency's analysis shows that the meteor, probably a few metres wide, barrelled into Earth's atmosphere at 72,000mph and exploded at an altitude of 16 miles. The blast released about 40% of the energy of the meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk, according to Kelly Fast, Nasa's near-Earth objects observations programme manager, who spoke at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science conference near Houston.
Between Tunguska, Chelyabinsk, and now this, it's obvious to me that space hates Russia.
Planetary Defense Officer. That'd be sweet on a business card.
Where's all the click-bait on what would it be like if this happened over a major population center?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
that the Goa'uld seem to targeting Russia?
They're actually fairly common, with about 20-40 air bursts occurring each year. They're pretty evenly distributed. Russia just seems to get a disproportionate number because it has the most land area of any country by almost a factor of 2. It's also got a large population spread throughout that very large land area. The country covers pretty much the same latitude as Canada (second-largest country), but Canada is mostly deserted at higher latitutdes. So that increases the chances of a meteor being seen/recorded over Russia.
It's also worth noting that the ancient Egyptians also witnessed large meteor events and used the material to create jewelry for royalty and ceremonial weapons.
The old Soviet Union had a system known as " Dead Hand " whereupon it would auto-launch a retaliatory strike in the event it detected what it considered to be a nuclear attack on Soviet targets.
Considering the cosmos treats Russia as a Meteor Magnet, I wonder how this system would interpret an impact from a larger celestial body.
( Assuming it's online )
Be about right that Russia would get smacked with a building sized meteor only to trigger said system and nuke half the planet :|
Lindley Johnson, a planetary defense officer at Nasa, told BBC News that blasts of this size were expected only two or three times a century.
Yet the last one was only six months ago!
What say you meteor-change deniers now??
This is a record for slow news. What did they do, send the message by Inuit canoe?
Inuits use kayaks, not canoes.
What I am more curious is, why does it it seem meteors always hit Russia?
Yes it is the largest country in area, but still I don't remember any big explosions over Canada, the United States, China, Braille.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
But with climate change we can expect these much more often.
True. We can even calculate the expected increase.
The average temp of the earth's atmosphere is 14C or 287 K. So a 2 degree increase will expand the atmosphere by a factor of 2/287 or 0.7%. Since the atmosphere is roughy 100km deep, this is an extra 700 meters.
The mean radius of the earth is 6371 km, or 6471 including the atm, for a cross sectional area of 1.315e8 square km. With the extra 700 m, this will increase by 9060 sq km.
So with global warming we should expect a 0.02% increase in meteor impacts.
I don't remember any big explosions over Canada, the United States, China, Braille.
If it happened in Braille, we wouldn't see it.
It didn't hit Russia. It hit the Bering Sea. So it did hit Alaska in the same sense than it hit Russia.
If it happened in Braille, we wouldn't see it.
But we could feel the bump.
Planetary Defense Officer! Tell me this isn't the coolest job title in all of human history! Imagine chatting at a bar. "What do you do for a living? Neurosurgeon? Rocket Scientist?" and you reply "No baby...Planetary Defense Officer. Y'know this Earth thing? Yeah, I defend that."
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Obviously because the Inuit canoes are so much slower.
Are you taking into account all the meteors that would have flown by a flat earth if they encountered it edge-on?
Have gnu, will travel.
"or even a million 150 horsepower cars running for a hour."
Or, a single 150,000,000 HP car running.
I don't remember any big explosions over Canada, the United States, China
That's because the Men in Black erased your memory.
Have you read my blog lately?
You must be new here.
Are you taking into account all the meteors that would have flown by a flat earth if they encountered it edge-on?
The reptile overlords would never send edge on meteors, since they can't be seen at the horizon and so would serve no purpose in fooling the populace.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I tell you, it was the Bugs!
It will be Buenos Aires next!
Would you like to know more?
Kayak does travel, but it's usually planes, trains and automobiles. Intuit does taxes.
I'm hear all week folks.
Just another day in Paradise