A fireball meteor shot across the sky over the Atlantic ocean earlier this month, according to NASA, which describes the fiery object as the largest since the Chelyabinsk meteor over Russian Federation in 2013.
Advertisement
“During the atmospheric entry phase, an impacting object is both slowed and heated by atmospheric friction”, NASA states on its website. Although the rocks can get very small once it land the ocean and cause relatively no damage, it is still good to know when one is coming. It was the largest recorded atmospheric impact since the Chelyabinsk bolide exploded over Russian Federation in 2013 and unleashed an energy force of 13 kilotons, roughly equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT. An event with an energy equivalent of one thousand tons of TNT explosives is termed a kiloton (kt) event, where 1 kt = 4.185 x 10 Joules. Considering the numbers, the recent event is apparently a repeat of the Chelyabinsk. If the rock is big, it can go deep into the atmosphere first before burning. But for the rest of us that don’t have access to massive telescopes and highly sensitive instruments, a little heads up would be much appreciated the next time a space rock crashes into the Earth. The incident wasn’t reported as it was over the ocean and not in a populated region.
The February 6 explosion took place about 600 miles off the Brazilian coast in a remote location, causing no damage and had no witnesses.
“I would assume the military sees most if not all events this size but chooses not to report them for their own reasons”, he wrote in a blog on Slate.
However, 13,000 tonnes is a puny amount of energy compared with the estimated 500,000-tonne energy of the Chelyabinsk meteor, which was thought to be 20 tonnes in diameter, with a mass of 11,000 tonnes before it exploded.
Astronomer and popular science blogger Phil Plait said that the latest impact was “pretty small” since the public didn’t learn about it until several weeks after it happened.
Advertisement
Nasa watches for hazardous “near-Earth objects”, which are tracked as they fly around our planet. ‘The possibilities of collision on any of the three future flyby dates are far too small to be of any real concern, ‘ said Paul Chodas, manager of CNEOS.
