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Image credit: Composite created with public domain images
Last week, Russian owners of home security and dashcam camera were treated to a light show while a meteor about 13 feet wide was flying above our heads and hit the atmosphere of our planet. According to reports, the meteor went unnoticed by NASA's detection equipment, but its impact was significant enough that it was recorded on sensors designed to monitor nuclear explosions.
CNEOS estimates that the meteor was traveling more than 32,000 miles at the time and that it struck the atmosphere and explored about 17 miles above Russia on June 21. Witnesses reported hearing a loud boom just after the impact, and a few people had their cameras pointed in the right direction at the perfect time to catch the trail of fire across the sky.
According to NASA, the impact of the meteor was about 2.8 kilotons, which was enough for the sensors to feel, but not exactly at what an existing nuclear weapon would be. CNET notes that "in 2013, an explosion of asteroids on Chelyabinsk, Russia, had a calculated total energy impact of 440 kilotons, which was enough to break thousands of windows 14 miles below the point of impact. Still, the impact of last week's meteor was much larger than this year's, with most of the others around the 0.1 kilotonne mark. NASA's inability to detect the incoming meteorite raises questions as to whether we are – or can be – adequately prepared for an asteroid strike, particularly given the near-failure we've had. in April. Despite this recent failure, NASA has, in the last report, chosen to design a spacecraft called HAMMER.
CNEOS maintains a world map of color-coded fireballs reported by the US government over the past 30 years. The colder the color and the smaller the point, the lower the impact energy. In addition to the big red dot for Russia's 2013 report, the points appear fairly evenly distributed across continents and oceans. This is not really comforting for those who are worried about meteorite death, but for people who hope to look up and see a series of fireballs, it's pretty cool .. as long as it is not of the variety.
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