"Explosion" may have been sonic meteor boom

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Some residents of central New York said they heard a loud and explosive sound that experts say could have been a sonic boom caused by a meteor. Post-Standard reports 911 centers in Onondaga and Oswego

Some residents of central New York said they heard a loud and explosive sound that experts say could have been a sonic boom caused by a meteor. The Post-Standard reports that 911 centers in Onondaga and Oswego counties received several calls for a loud explosion Monday night.

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GALLERY: Asteroids and meteors that we knew

On this photo provided by Chelyabinsk.ru, a meteorite fog is seen on Chelyabinsk on Friday, February 15, 2013. A meteor has crossed the Ural sky in Russia

GALLERY: Asteroids and meteors that we knew

On this photo provided by Chelyabinsk.ru, a meteorite wind was seen on Chelyabinsk on Friday, February 15, 2013. A meteor crossed the sky from the Ural mountains in Russia on Friday morning, causing loud explosions and injuring about 100 people, many injured by broken glass.

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This photo provided by the Chicago Field Museum, taken on April 9, 2013, shows pieces of a meteor that exploded over the Ural mountains in Russia after their cataloging on their arrival at the
This photo provided by the Chicago Field Museum, taken on April 9, 2013, shows pieces of a meteor that exploded on the Ural mountains in Russia after cataloging on their arrival at the Chicago Museum.

The museum received nearly a kilo of small pieces of meteorite donated by a collector.

After a surprise meteorite on the Earth at 42,000 mph, it exploded over a Russian city in February, smashing windows and causing minor injuries. Scientists studying this disaster, however, have said that the threat of space rocks moving towards our planet is greater than they thought. Meteorites like the one that exploded above Chelyabinsk – and those that are even bigger and more dangerous – are probably four to five times more likely to touch the Earth than scientists thought before the explosion in flight February, according to three studies published Wednesday in Nature and Science journals.

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A circular hole in the ice of Chebarkul Lake where a meteor allegedly hit the lake near Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometers east of Moscow, Russia, on Friday, February 15, 2013. A meteor went through a trail
A circular hole in the ice of Chebarkul Lake where a meteor allegedly hit the lake near Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometers east of Moscow, Russia, on Friday, February 15, 2013. A meteor crossed the sky and has Exploded on the Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb Friday, its sound explosions broke countless windows and injured nearly 1,000 people.

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Meteor Crater is one of the youngest and best preserved impact craters on the planet. The crater was formed about 50,000 years ago when an iron-rich meteor of 30 meters wide and weighing 100,000 tons hit the Arizona desert.
Meteor Crater is one of the youngest and best preserved impact craters on the planet. The crater was formed about 50,000 years ago when an iron-rich meteor of 30 meters wide and weighing 100,000 tons hit the Arizona desert at an estimated speed of 20 km / s. The resulting explosion exceeded the combined strength of current nuclear arsenals and created a crater of a width of 1.1 kilometers and a depth of 200 meters. Meteor Crater is a simple crater because it has no central terraces or ledges. The crater is formed in layers of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks, some of which are exposed in the nearby Grand Canyon. These rocks were raised and in some cases returned to the edge of the crater. Slippage and subsequent erosion partially filled the bottom of the crater with minor amounts of edge material and sediment.

The story of the Moon, which is very crowded with craters, indicates that the Earth has also experienced many impact events at the beginning of its history. The erosion and tectonic processes of the plates have combined to erase almost all the craters of the Earth. To date, only 150 impact craters have been identified on Earth, and most of them are severely eroded or buried by subsequent rock units. The origin of this classic, simple meteorite impact crater has long been the subject of controversy.

The discovery of fragments of the Diablo Canyon meteorite, including fragments of gap deposits that partially fill the structure, and a range of shock metamorphic features in the target sandstone have proved its origin. Target rocks include Paleozoic carbonates and sandstones; these rocks were spilled just outside the edge during ejection. The bumpy deposits located just beyond the rim are remnants of the ejecta cover.

This aerial view shows the dramatic expression of the crater in the arid landscape. The crater is named after Daniel Moreau Barringer, a …

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In this 1953 archival photo, trees lay in the Siberian countryside 45 years after a meteorite hit the Earth near Tunguska, Russia. It is generally estimated that the explosion of 1908 took place around 10
In this 1953 archival photo, trees lay in the Siberian countryside 45 years after a meteorite hit the Earth near Tunguska, Russia. The explosion of 1908 is generally estimated at about 10 megatons; he razed some 80 million trees for miles near the site of the impact. The meteor that crossed the Russian skies on Friday, February 15, 2013 is estimated at about 10 tons. It exploded with the power of an atomic bomb on the Ural Mountains, about 5,000 km west of Tunguska.