A frame from the debut video of the Infrasound Analysis.
How many 1kT meteorites have hit the Earth since 2000? (These are the ones that hit with 1000 tons of TNT) How many hit Earth that exceed 15kT (> Hiroshima nuclear blast)?
Hmmm…. We know of the Chelyabinsk air burst that blasted 100,000 windows (shooting glass into 1,500 people who went toward the windows when they saw the flash of light that preceded the shock wave). Any others? Well, we’ve been monitoring the low-frequency vibration signal of an underground nuclear weapons test with an array of receivers. Since 2000, there was only one nuclear test, or so we thought, in South Africa, but it turned out to be a meteorite impact. Aha! This sensor array detects meteorite impacts that nobody saw, whether at sea,= or the outback.
So, how many big impacts have we had since 2000? There have been 26. And the largest eight are Hiroshima-class, one of which landed in the Mediterranean, and another barely off the coast of Australia. Scary close for a Hiroshima blast coming in at Mach 50 from the sky gods.
It’s amazing to watch the globe spin as 20 of the 26 hit oceans, without human witnesses. One hit the Australian outback, two hit Northwest Africa, and only three others hit land, including Chelyabinsk.
The conclusion of this research: “Near-Earth object impacts could be about 10 times more common than we thought they were.” (LA Times, 11/6/13)
Photo by Julie Sparenberg
More Photos: www.facebook.com/jurvetson/posts/10153567886100611
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