[meteorite-list] Chelyabinsk at White House today

From: Michael Farmer <mike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:24:30 -0700
Message-ID: <AC425665-EB4E-4255-91AA-6C151AB0FA86_at_meteoriteguy.com>

Also, let's think about how much made it to the ground.
If the numbers are correct, with ~500 kilotons of detonation, and 11,000 metric tons of mass, and lets say even if 99% vaporized in the explosion, that would leave 110 TONS of material on the ground! And I certainly do not believe that 99% vaporized.
The very bright mass easily seen flying out of the terminal cloud in the videos is estimated by Russian scientists to have been at least 10 metric tons and flown 180-200 km past lake Chebarkul. By no means is that little hole in the lake the "main mass".
That should have survived intact since it was intact after the detonations and went into dark flight. It is now likely in the Ural Mountains.
I think that piece might have made a nice little crater had it come down in the city.
Michael Farmer


Michael Farmer

Sent from my iPad

On Mar 25, 2013, at 6:08 PM, Chris Peterson <clp at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

> It's extremely doubtful that this body could have done all that much more damage. It simply wasn't big enough, or strong enough. A little steeper (or just as likely, as little shallower), a little earlier or later, probably wouldn't have made much difference.
>
> While I'd love to see a constellation of IR space telescopes looking for asteroids in this size range, realistically there's probably nothing we could do if we found one, and as a matter of public policy, the money might well be considered poorly spent.
>
> The reality is that the actual risk to human life and property from small asteroids is absurdly small compared to a large number of other things that we actually have some control over.
>
> Chris
>
> *******************************
> Chris L Peterson
> Cloudbait Observatory
> http://www.cloudbait.com
>
> On 3/25/2013 3:15 PM, Michael Farmer wrote:
>> Congratulations to Dante Lauretta of UOfA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Osiris-Rex mission, who presented a piece of Chelyabinsk that I donated, to President Obama and Congress today while there to discuss the threat of asteroid impact.
>>
>> Chelyabinsk was almost a "City Killer" as Richard Kowalski told me yesterday, had it come in a few second earlier and steeper angle, a million people in Chelyabinsk would likely be dead today.
>> Time to take meteorites serious.
>>
>> Michael Farmer
>
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Received on Mon 25 Mar 2013 10:24:30 PM PDT