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Asteroid impacts with the Earth
Stony asteroids with a diameter less than about 100 metres generally do not reach the Earth's surface. These objects usually explode several kilometres above the surface (an "airburst"). This was probably the case with the "Tunguska" Siberian event in 1908. The kinetic energy involved is substantial - a typical impact by a 50m object releases about 10 megatons of TNT and that of a 100m object releases about 75 Mt (the actual kinetic energy depends on several factors such as speed and density and can vary by a factor of more than 10). These explosions are equivalent in energy to large thermonuclear explosions and they can cause devastation over thousands of square kilometres - in the case of Tunguska the area of destruction was about 2,000 sq km or a circle of radius 25km.. Fortunately the region was sparsely populated and had little effect on humans (unlike now when it could not have been mistaken for a hostile nuclear explosion).
The purpose of the Near-Earth Object Program is to coordinate NASA-sponsored efforts to detect, track and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could approach the Earth. The NEO Program will focus on the goal of locating at least 90 percent of the estimated 1,000 asteroids and comets that approach the Earth and are larger than 1 kilometer (about 2/3-mile) in diameter, by the end of the next decade. In addition to managing the detection and cataloging of Near-Earth objects, the NEO Program office will be responsible for facilitating communications between the astronomical community and the public should any potentially hazardous objects be discovered.
The team then conducted a comparative study of tsunamis generated by asteroids of different sizes, velocities and compositions. According to its asteroid impact paper published in the Science of Tsunami Hazards Journal, the team performed a series of two-dimensional and three-dimensional simulations of asteroid impacts into an ocean, using realistic equations of state for the atmosphere, seawater, the oceanic crust and the mantle. "These asteroid-caused tsunamis can have large amplitudes at the source, but will decline faster with distance than landslide-caused tsunamis," Gisler said.
Originally posted by NoRegretsEver
Is it easier for scientists, and TPTB to make it public that many of the catastrophic events have in fact been caused by "natural" disasters, as opposed to asteroids that we cannot control?
Originally posted by NoRegretsEver
I am in NO way down playing what has happened in any of the places that have lost hundreds of thousands of lives, or the possibility that these events are in fact caused by earthquakes. I just ask, could there be another explanation, and if so what?
Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL
Can't be.
An asteroid would have been seen by someone It would have caused a far larger wave.
WASHINGTON — NASA is charged with spotting most of the asteroids that pose a threat to Earth but does not have the money to complete the job, a U.S. government report says.
That is because even though Congress assigned the space agency that mission four years ago, it never gave NASA the money to build the necessary telescopes, according to the report released Wednesday by the National Academy of Sciences.
Specifically, the mission calls for NASA, by the year 2020, to locate 90 percent of the potentially deadly rocks hurtling through space. The agency says it has been able to complete about one-third of its assignment with the current telescope system.
NASA estimates that there are about 20,000 asteroids and comets in our solar system that are potential threats. They are larger than 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter — slightly smaller than a sports stadium in New Orleans. So far, scientists know where about 6,000 of these objects are.
Rocks between 460 feet and 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) in diameter can devastate an entire region, said Lindley Johnson, NASA's manager of the near-Earth objects program. Objects bigger than that are even more threatening, of course.
Just last month astronomers were surprised when an object of unknown size and origin bashed into Jupiter and created an Earth-sized bruise that is still spreading. Jupiter does get slammed more often than Earth because of its immense gravity, enormous size and location.
Disaster movies like "Armageddon" and near misses in previous years may have scared people and alerted them to the threat. But when it comes to monitoring, the academy concluded "there has been relatively little effort by the U.S. government."
Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified
For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth's atmosphere – but no longer.
A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com has learned.
The satellites' main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists.
"It's baffling to us why this would suddenly change," said one scientist familiar with the work. "It's unfortunate because there was this great synergy…a very good cooperative arrangement. Systems were put into dual-use mode where a lot of science was getting done that couldn't be done any other way. It's a regrettable change in policy."
Scientists say not only will research into the threat from space be hampered, but public understanding of sometimes dramatic sky explosions will be diminished, perhaps leading to hype and fear of the unknown.
Originally posted by NoRegretsEver
As I stated before that this was in fact a theory.