You may have heard that NASA announced over the weekend at a conference that a large meteor exploded in the upper atmosphere over the Bering Sea on December 18th, 2018, which had gone unnoticed due to the location of entry. Quick to capitalize on that story, CNN rushed to report it, and like the meteor, bombed in the process.
Here’s the headline:
And here is the text of the report, note the highlight:
Umm, riiight. I didn’t even have to look it up to know that the Hiroshima bomb (Little Boy) had a 15 kiloton yield, but it’s right there in Wikipedia had the author bothered to check facts first.
Let’s see, a 4.2 kiloton meteor explosion in the atmosphere, vs. the 15 kiloton Hiroshima bomb.
For the math challenged, like CNN writer AJ Willingham here’s how that works out:
15 kilotons/4.2kilotons = 3.57 times SMALLER than the Hiroshima Bomb.
Yet somehow, CNN thinks the meteor was 10 times stronger, or with a yield of 15 kilotons x 10=150 kilotons. Nope, not no way, not no how.
CNN > FAIL.
UPDATED: Meanwhile, here’s a GIF photo sequence of the event, captured by Simon Proud:
https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/profiles/proud/him8-meteor-44706.gif
h/t to Dave Heider
UPDATE: CNN finally got around to updating the story and noting a correction at 1:58 AM ET, Tue March 19, 2019 :
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the fireball had an impact energy of 173 kilotons.
Looks like you don’t need to take any math or science classes to be a journalist.
Yes, and as far as news outlets are concerned, CNN is the mother faker.
Clever!
And accurate.
New information:
“On March 8, Peter Brown, a professor of astronomy at Western University in London, Ont., was looking through low-frequency sound data gathered automatically by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization when he noticed that an explosive event of unusual force had occurred on Dec. 18, centred on a point about 300 kilometres off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. Soon after he posted word of his find on Twitter, more information about the event appeared on a NASA website that lists exceptionally bright meteors based on data gleaned from the U.S. Air Force.
“The data suggest that an incoming object about 10 to 14 metres across – roughly the size of a two-car garage – and weighing about 1,440 metric tonnes, plowed into Earth’s atmosphere at a steep angle and came within 25 kilometres of the ocean surface before it burst apart. The resulting explosion, estimated at 173 kilotons, was more than 10 times larger than the one produced by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.”
Love that line !
its actually a prerequisite that you haven’t taken math
Or use critical thinking. Just eat the pablum and follow your editors direction.
Yeah. They should learn to code.
Never mind “learn to code” ( careful that’s “hate speech” ), they need to learn to read first; then learn to add up. Once they have got to big school they will learn the fancy stuff, like multiplication !!
What a bunch of mother fakers ( h/t R Shearer )
I don’t understand why “Learn to Code” is hate speech. From the early days passing a shoe-box full of punch cards to the white lab coat priests of an IBM 360/370, to having awesome development environments with rich APIs behind almost every software I use, thoughtful coding makes one a god among men ( who tediously perform repetitious activities manually ). “Learn to Code” are words of power.
Twitter was banning people who used the comment with respect to all the “reporters” that were let go from Buzzfeed. They considered its use as “hate speech”.
Man, I guess 30 years of my resume needs to be banned
No you don’t but it’s unlikely CNN made up the numbers.
Probably came from NASA’s own press release.
Maybe there’s a typo?
Fox News also ran the same story almost verbatim.
Looks like they fed their figures into a GCM and ran with the garbage that emerged.
Every time I hear or see somebody describe something as so many times smaller – I cringe. You could phrase it as, “about 1/4 as large” or even “72% smaller.”
But, once you say 3.57 times a small, you mark yourself as someone who has suffered under the new math educational system. To be clear, multiplying a positive value by a positive number greater than one MUST make the number large, not smaller.
I saw this report on the Fox News website this morning, which itself names the BBC as the source. There was a 173 kiloton value mentioned, thus the “ten times” headline.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/us-detects-meteor-explosion-10-times-the-energy-as-atomic-bomb-report
So probably not just a CNN problem.
It seems to be a NASA’s problem – https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/ says 173 kt
Strange that at a location where Russia and the US are very close to each other a huge explosion would not be noticed. Why didn’t it start a nuclear war?
That website seems to be where CNN got their data from. There was a fireball that released 4.2 kilotons equivalent of energy about a month ago and I would suspect that
the CNN reporter read the wrong line for the energy release. The December fireball is listed as 173 kilotons which is more than 10 times the Hiroshima explosion. So while there is still an error it would appear to be a transcription error rather than a maths error.
CG – Thanks for finding that NASA page! Earlier I searched with no success.
I saw the article on BBC. In the BBC article, they say the meteor exploded with a force of 173Ktons. Which would be about 10x more than Hiroshima. I wonder who is closer to being right, BBC or CNN
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47607696
So that’s why we didn’t get a modernity ending EMP.
Knew there was a reason.
An exploding meteor doesn’t give off nuclear fission products, so there wouldn’t have been any EMP.
Anna Keppa
It isn’t the “nuclear fission products” that are responsible for the EMP. But, the electrons, ions, and neutrons are a good start!
IIRC, it’s the gamma ray burst that generates the EMP.
My recollection is that it is the expanding superconducting fireball that excludes the Earth’s magnetic fiield from the space it occupies.
Martin A
We’re both right… The E1 and E2 components of the EMP are a result of gamma radiation (The E2 is partially a result of gamma rays generated by neutron radiation). The E3 component does result from the distortion of the earth’s magnetic field and is a longer-acting effect, and is primarily responsible for effects like current surges in power transmission lines.
It can’t be the gamma ray burst that generates the EMP. Or more accurately, the mythological Hollywood style shut down of all electrical equipment EMP effect doesn’t exist.
We know this because terrestrial gamma ray bursts between the stratosphere and ionosphere happen pretty regularly. Naturally.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/29jan_firefly/
These are lightning bolts that flash from the top of thunderclouds to the edge of space.
https://youtu.be/r50Un4LPTM4?t=42
Not being willing to do either math or research is a requirement to work for CNN.
That outlet announced one day that the “crew of a Boeing A320 …”
Other details are irrelevant.
Calumny News Network (CNN) has long failed any credibility metric. I have expertise is a few areas. CNN and others, including Fox, routinely broadcast inaccurate and false statements regarding those areas. The only safe assumption is that they are equally wrong in areas where I have little or no expertise. So, it’s all down to personal responsibility. Educate yourself.
+4.2
Jim
Falsus in uno falsus in omnibus
I’m sorry, but that Latin phrase is nonsense. Basically you’re saying that if any single statement someone makes is false, then every single statement they make is false. That would falsify everything any human being would say, because all of us have accidentally or on purpose said false things.
I would allow for human error–perfection is for the perfectionists–Gestapo-types IMO. However, journalists are probably saying more than one false thing–in every story. In events that I have personal knowledge, they mess it up. I can only assume they are messing up the things I don’t have personal knowledge.
Jim
It is a tactic beloved by lawyers. If they can find a falsehood anywhere in your testimony, including sworn depositions, they hold it as sufficient grounds to impugn all of your testimony.
What happened to the KABOOM?
There was supposed to be an earth-shattering KABOOM!
-Marvin the Martian for CNN
There’s always a boom:
Somewhat depends on altitude of explosion…altitude is never mentioned.
Estimated at 25 km – 82,000 feet for those of us using an archaic system.
Of course, I use feet. Why would I want to be like the French? Although, I compliment them on developing garden slugs as a method of delivering butter and garlic. And the bidet.
NASA data reports 4.2 k.
Somebody messed up (i.e., as stated by others, didn’t even bother to do the research on it).
When news media overwhelmingly manage to parade 4.2 k as 10-times Hiroshima, then it becomes even clearer how they can report 2 degrees as an existential crisis. Obviously, they are all going for the drama of big catastrophes, to feed news junkies’ addictions.
Other news reports say the meteor exploded with a force of 173 kilotons of TNT. That would be slightly more than 11 times the Hiroshima blast. The “ten times” value would be in the ballpark in that case. One wonders where the “4.2” value came from. A kiloton of TNT is equivalent to 4.184 terajoules. Rounded, that would be 4.2 TJ. Maybe the author overdosed on too many numbers a just threw some random ones in.
Jim
Or more likely they don’t know the difference between kilotons and terajoules.
But either way they are back to equating things to “atomic bombs”.
Looks like all other news outlets are reporting 173 kilotons, which simply means CNN is simply guilty of the bad, inaccurate reporting that is their standard.
OTOH, offer the right person a research grant, and he or she will make corrective adjustments to the estimated yield to fit whatever your model requires.
This particular report is far more accurate than most CNN (and BBC) reports.
In college when we started Algebra II as freshman they wore a path across the quad heading to the Journalism College. The professor even commented on it.
Well, zombies apparently move in herds. Herds form trails on the ground.
Not to be outdone, Australia’s ABC news website has just posted that it was 10X Hiroshima!!!
You guys may think NYT and WaPo are left wing – Australia’s ABC leaves them for dead.
Check out AJ’s Bio
“AJ Willingham is a writer for CNN Digital in Atlanta. She specializes in internet curiosities, humor, pedantry, sports and setting the record straight. Go Nats. “
Air bursts involving objects at least 13 feet diameter happen every one and a quarter years or so. link Folks are paying attention to air bursts because they might be mistaken for nuclear tests.
I’m guessing we will have a credible estimate, from official sources, of the energy involved fairly soon.
The meteor “display” is very dependent on the type of object. If it is a loose aggregate of icy and carbonaceous material (like a typical comet), it will explode apart in higher atmosphere with a large fireball. However, if solid rock or iron (a meteorite) it will make a fireball all the way to Earth, assuming is about a foot in diameter. If a 13 feet iron meteorite comes down, better hide. It would make a crater about 130-250 feet in diameter and a blast area miles across.
An aggregate is what this apparently was. Blew apart at an estimated 25 km, where the air pressure is (about) 0.03 bar.
I’d be interested to know what the “steep” angle was, though. An iron-nickel chunk coming almost straight down would be catastrophic, as you note. (Pretty much wherever it landed, except for extreme north or south – probably not an urban area, as those occupy a very small percentage of the Earth’s surface, but just about anywhere has someone living in it, or sea lanes across it.)
If you have NASA bureaucrats working on it, maybe not.
I wouldn’t have said there wasn’t any “impact” energy at all… as it exploded high in the atmosphere… without impacting anything.
wouldn’t have said there was
Something can impact the air – or air can impact something. Was bending over one day a couple years ago, and one of those massive downdrafts we get here in the summer hit the surface. Planted my face in the dirt just as effectively as someone kicking me in the rear end would have.
Why would anybody trust journalists to tell the truth?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
CNN isn’t a news organization. It’s replaced Saturday Night Live
The Chelyabinsk meteor, which was originally an asteroid before it broke up, “entered the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk at over eleven miles per second and blew apart 14 miles above the ground. The explosion released the energy equivalent of around 440,000 tons of TNT and generated a shock wave that blew out windows over 200 square miles and damaged some buildings. Over 1,600 people were injured in the blast, mostly due to broken glass.” – Source – NASA
Link: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/five-years-after-the-chelyabinsk-meteor-nasa-leads-efforts-in-planetary-defense
The Chelyabinsk rock caused quite a bit of damage in the form of windows that were shattered by the shock waves it generated as it passed, and damage to buildings that were under construction.
I don’t take the Space Rocks lightly, but going into hysterics to get attention for something that had little to no impact, other than as a noisemaker (in the case of this rock) seems a bit over the top to me. They keep crying “WOLF!!! WOLF!!!” and there IS no wolf just yet.
Idiots.
The Stony Tunguska event is worth noting though.
Problem is with the dates:
CNN reported about last years fireball (2018-12-18), but reported the energy of a more recent one (2019-02-18)
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/
2018-12-18 23:48:20 173kt
2019-02-18 10:00:43 4.2kt
h/t Curious George for providing the website
It’s an excellent point Roy. It makes more sense that they can’t read a table correctly.
Jim
Rhetorical questions:
If a tree falls in the forest but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If a meteorite falls into the Bering Sea but no one is around to see it, does it make a splash?
Did CNN make a huge mistake (again) or report fake news (again)?
“Did CNN make a huge mistake (again) or report fake news (again)?”
Embrace the healing power of “and,” Louis.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has just made the same mistaken report.
Can’t count either !
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-19/fireball-ten-times-energy-of-hiroshima-bomb-explodes-near-russia/10915156
Every time some news or science jerk compares something to the force of “x Hiroshima bombs” I experience an immediate visceral reaction. What ever point they had been trying to make disappears and my thought is derailed completely in a haze of disgust and resentment towards the speaker.
They are glibly dancing on the graves of the affected Japanese, who are our friends and allies, SUDDENLY introducing a city place-name into the stream like a bolt of lightning, making reference a city with a modern thriving identity. It is beyond rude. The defense that it is ‘merely for purposes of illustration’ is a crass dismissal, for even science writers should be aware that most people do not really know the precise extent of energy that was released, so as a unit of measure it is moot. It only has measure (in peoples’ minds) as a traumatic event.
Americans would become mystified and a bit uncomfortable if, say, Russian news commentators would begin to refer to explosions as “x Space Shuttle Challenger disasters” or “x 9/11s”, and annotating the reference with an estimate of energy released would not excuse the gaffe. All it would take is a moment’s thought to come up with something else. Before the Hiroshima smear we used “tons of TNT” to size explosions. Even “x Trinity blasts” would be fine — for that was a more of a scientific moment rather than a people-died-screaming moment.
Have you noticed… when the Trinity test is discussed, the “tons of TNT” is usually appended to illustrate its scale… but when “x Hiroshima bombs” are cited, the TNT equivalent is almost always omitted? Is this merely… sloppy?
I’m becoming less tolerant of people as I grow older, and one thing that sticks in my craw is when people behave rudely without thinking. Or as is the case here, it can stem from an irrational dislike of all things nuclear that is not the result of any conscious opinion but a cultural catcall, virtue signalling without even conscious awareness of doing so.
Dropping the ‘Hiroshima’ as a unit of energy is rude.
It can be a tactic of anti-nuclear zealots.
And people whose behavior is (in the end) indistinguishable from zealots.
In case you were wondering, I am a zealot in favor of nuclear energy.
… somewhere else… I participate in discussions that usually involve earthquakes. Just to illustrate how small some of them are when people get rabidly excited over a small quake, I calculate the equivalent energy in the food energy of twinkies.
I love it. Though when you are exposed to people who get rabidly excited over anything it’s best to be sure. Take the shots, they’re less painful than they used to be. You can save yourself some trouble (and freight) by mailing their heads to a lab for testing.
Near here, we’ve had 4 tiny quakes. My grandson has started throwing around suppositions about what’s going on. The largest quake, a mag 3.1, is about 5032 twinkies.
They are all manifestation’s of the Port St Joe transform fault and they occur from time to time.
If you notice, there is also a pretty strong cyclonic weather system in the picture the Japanese satellite took. That system most likely has quite a bit more energy in it than the fireball.
Anthony
If you are going to give some richly deserved crap to this report, it would be well to have your own mathematical house in order. 15 Kilotons/4.2K is not 3.57 times LESS than the Hiroshima bomb, the H bomb is 3.57 times MORE than the event. The event is 1/3.57 or about 28% of the H bomb. If it was 1 times less than the H bomb it would be ZERO!
One sees this XXX times less than Y so often in the MSM (the avg worker makes 100 times less than the CEO) but I don’t expect to see it here. I think part of it is the innumeracy of some reporters and of others knowing it is wrong but wanting exaggerate for effect.
You have a good point. I’m so used to deploying the 1/x key on my calculator and working from some intuitive sense of the direction a ratio is facing, I hardly ever notice this anymore. A real peeve of mine is when ratios are given opposite to the order the terms are presented, as in “Men without hats outnumber men with hats 1:250.”
It would be well to keep your nuclear house in order and avoid the term ‘H bomb’ when discussing Hiroshima, that was an early fission ‘A Bomb’ and the H is the later series hydrogen (fusion).
Worship the Dark Lord of INNUMERACY!
Join the INNUMERATI!
“H” was in reference to Hiroshima as was noted earlier in the sentence.