Posted on 11/10/2009 11:26:06 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Naw, but my dad does. Can't even sit on the toilet some days.
In top 5 of my fav. 50’s Sci Fi movies .
“Similar sized objects pass by this close to Earth about twice a year and impact on the planet about once every five years.”
(All the cheerleaders come out for smooches! -- Calvin and Hobbes)
Cheers!
lucky you...
Dixie Mistie shouts! ;-)
The Tunguska Event was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia on June 30, 1908. Although the cause of the explosion is the subject of debate, it is commonly believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 3 –6 miles above the Earth's surface.Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object's size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.
Estimates of the energy of the blast range from 5 megatons of TNT to as high as 30 megatons of TNT of TNT — roughly equal to the United States' Castle Bravo thermonuclear bomb tested in late February 1954, about 1,000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
So, "a few tens of meters" - say 30 meters or roughly 100 feet across. And the rock that passed by today was about 23 feet across - maybe 1/64 the mass of the big Tunguska rock.
The photos of the flattened trees from the airburst are really incredible.
I don't think a 23 foot diameter rock would burn up in the atmosphere.
The clue is, "...pass this close..."
Most enter the atmosphere, light things up, and exit the atmosphere back into space.
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