Initial Estimates of the Meteor That Hit Russia Are In | Weather
I am sure you have seen a ton of video from this massive meteorite that came into our atmosphere earlier today in Russia!! Well the initial estimates are in and this thing was pretty big!!!
This is from Spaceweather.com:
Researchers including Prof. Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario along with NASA experts have conducted a preliminary analysis of the event. "Here is what we know so far," says Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "The asteroid was about 15 meters in diameter and weighed approximately 7000 metric tons. It struck Earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph (18 km/s) and broke apart about 12 to 15 miles (20 to 25 km) above Earth's surface. The energy of the resulting explosion was in the vicinity of 300 kilotons of TNT."
"A shock wave propagated down and struck the city below, causing large numbers of windows to break, some walls to collapse, and minor damage throughout the city," he continued. "When you hear about injuries, those are undoubtedly due to the effects of the shock wave, not due to fragments striking the ground. There are undoubtedly fragments on the ground, but as of this time we know of no recovered fragments that we can verify."
What I find wild about this entire thing is that while the world was waiting for Asteroid 2012 DA 14 this thing snuck under the radar and gave the folks in Russia a MAJOR scare. Another thing that boggles my mind is how powerful the shock wave was from this thing to injure 1,000 people and destroy buildings!!! It has been since the early 1900's since a meteorite this big has hit Russia!!
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