From NASA’s Spaceweather.com
INDONESIAN ASTEROID: Picture this: A 10-meter wide asteroid hits Earth and explodes in the atmosphere with the energy of a small atomic bomb. Frightened by thunderous sounds and shaking walls, people rush out of their homes, thinking that an earthquake is in progress. All they see is a twisting trail of debris in the mid-day sky:
This really happened on Oct. 8th around 11 am local time in the coastal town of Bone, Indonesia. The Earth-shaking blast received remarkably little coverage in Western press, but meteor scientists have given it their full attention. “The explosion triggered infrasound sensors of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) more than 10,000 km away,” report researchers Elizabeth Silber and Peter Brown of the Univ. of Western Ontario in an Oct. 19th press release. Their analysis of the infrasound data revealed an explosion at coordinates 4.5S, 120E (close to Bone) with a yield of about 50 kton of TNT. That’s two to three times more powerful than World War II-era atomic bombs.
The asteroid that caused the blast was not known before it hit and took astronomers completely by surprise. According to statistical studies of the near-Earth asteroid population, such objects are expected to collide with Earth on average every 2 to 12 years. “Follow-on observations from other instruments or ground recovery efforts would be very valuable in further refining this unique event,” say Silber and Brown.
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I worry about asteroid events more than I do climate change. Here’s why, Spaceweather.com has this summary:
A bunch of that “stimulus” money would be better spent for humanity if we worked on building an asteroid detection and defense system.
This asteroid event is indeed frightening. Thanks for pointing out something that warrants legitimate concern.
A real threat warrants a real response.
It’s a good thing that this rock broke up/exploded harmlessly in the atmosphere. Imagine if it had hit a major city.
The key difference between asteroid strike threat vs AGW threat? There is actual physical evidence for the former.
A bunch of that “stimulus” money would be better spent for humanity if we worked on building an asteroid detection and defense system.
You’ve got that right… but asteroids will just kill us. You can’t regulate asteroids. CO2, on the other hand… Regulate it, and you regulate everything.
Nah! That was Al Gore re-entering the atmosphere!
It’s disgusting how much is spent on Asteroid detection compared to the astrology of climate change!
We need mega $$ spent on asteroids ASAP, otherwise one of these could wipe out an entire city instantly!
Hmmmmm I wonder what one of those say 300m or larger in a direct collision would do for global warming for the survivors? Perhaps we are studying the wrong possible possible catastrophic event
Bill Derryberry
“An asteroid came at us
but what could we do?
We’d spent all our money
to reduce CO2.
…
And now we’re just green ooze
with bubbling gas.
Lord Al G. would be proud of US;
“Green at last!”
But though we’re green
we’re also blue;
we miss that lovely
CO2.” excerpt from the Tale of Goregamash
In the mid-1930’s I was living in North Plainfield, NJ. In the middle of the night a small meteorite passed over and hit the ground. The remains were the size of a baseball, according to the newspaper, but the passage caused a thunderous roar loud enough to awake everyone. I can imagine that a meteor the size of the Indonesion one would be cause for great fright.
The director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, James Green, said, ”Finding them is one thing, but you have to know your enemy.” So far, NASA has spent $US41million ($A59.65million) on asteroid detection and deflection, but the Near Earth Object Program is running out of money!!!!!!!!
”It’s just barely hanging on,” Mr Shapiro said.
The amount of money spent on global warming research since 1990 is now about $US50 billion
To adhere to the Kyoto Protocol and thereby postpone warming by just five years to 2100, the cost would be $US180 billion annually.
Preventing HIV/AIDS turns out to be the very best investment humanity can make … For $US27 billion, we can save 28 million lives over the coming years.
Investing $US12 billion would probably halve the number of people dying from malnutrition, currently almost 2.4 million a year; $US13 billion would reduce deaths from malaria, now a million a year, by the same proportion. UNICEF estimates that just $US70-80 billion a year could give all Third World inhabitants access to the basics such as health, education, water and sanitation.
It would be funny spending billions on global warming only to have a big asteroid just wipe us out!
REPLY: And who’d be laughing about that? Cockroaches maybe once they become sentient and figure it out. – A
50 kilotons? Yikes! It’s amazing what does NOT make the news sometimes.
Another close call, and our Congress hasn’t passed a law about it.
It isn’t the case, but the smoke trail of the meteor looks like it took a u-turn.
That’s caused by the varying wind speeds at different altitudes.
NASA contends that it has been assigned the mission of monitoring for NEA’s, but Congress has failed to fund.
Did you not know that in 1812 the Paris Institut, in terms of natural Philosophy second only in prestige to the Royal Society, solemnly declared the idea that stones fell from the sky was an absurd old wives tale.
A few months later there was a fall of meteorites just outside Paris.
Kindest Regards
A rock whose surface heats up until it explodes.
Yup, definitely globular warming.
This asteroid was clearly caused by AGW. There will be many more asteroids in the future unless we act to reduce carbon emissions now.
Surprise! Anyway here’s a fun little on-line calculator to “roll your own” impact. Just fill in the blanks and it will tell you what the effects will be at the “Distance from Impact” you specify. http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
One rock can ruin your whole day.
The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood, … Revelation 8:8
[hysteria ON]
It’s worse than we thought!
[hysteria OFF]
Hey, it worked for CAGW…
Maybe Gaia just called in some favors from the asteroid belt to hose us vermin off her. I guess things are tight all over.
But CMEs would wipe out our satellites (1859!) and you wouldn’t be able to post.
Well, sweet dreams!
Is it me, or has there been an uptick in these events recently?
Am I the only one that noticed that Frida’s hot? Priorities people!
Brent in Calgary
What about asteroids heading our way from behind the sun? I bet our telescopes aren’t able to see these. Side note: Ive visited this site many many times, and I only just now noticed a tiny happy face in the bottom left of this web page. I need a bigger telescope!
I had the opportunity as a young boy to observe a large object pass over the Lake Tahoe area. It seemed to be about the size of a house, but, unlike those I often see in news reports, it was not burning, smoking, roaring or whistling. It passed across the entire horizon silently, in just a few seconds, at what appeared to be less than 5,000ft of altitude. I thought I could see a metallic sheen on some surfaces, suggesting a meteor. But, No shock wave, no sound, and higher than it appeared, as it cleared a nearby mountain top. Leaving me wondering if I had witnessed the passing of an object traveling outside the atmosphere, and therefore much larger than it appeared.