[meteorite-list] Chelyabinsk at White House today

From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:26:25 -0600
Message-ID: <51512371.3090308_at_alumni.caltech.edu>

It would be more accurate to say that around 100 people were injured
more seriously than minor scrapes and cuts.

What I'm saying is that I don't consider it likely that any different
trajectory would have made this body significantly more dangerous; that
"a million dead" is really, really unlikely. That not much made it to
the ground from this exact event, and not much would have made it to the
ground had it been slightly different.

What I'm saying is that even if there were a more dangerous trajectory,
so what? This body didn't do much damage. You might as well argue that
DA14, on a different trajectory, would be dangerous. True enough, but it
wasn't on a different trajectory, was it? There is a far greater chance
of any small asteroid not causing damage than otherwise.

What I'm saying is that while there are all sorts of interesting
scientific reasons for detecting bodies like this, there isn't much of a
public safety case to be made.

Chris

*******************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On 3/25/2013 8:10 PM, Michael Farmer wrote:
> I was just in Chelyabinsk, a city under emergency for the last month, -20 and tens of thousands of windows blown out, not only glass, but entire walls of many buildings caved in, entire buildings collapsed, and more than 1500 wounded, some still in the hospital, and that was just a meteorite passing overhead 30 miles high.
> Are you telling me that those hundreds of thousands of stones, doubtless many weighing tons, would not have killed thousands or destroyed hundreds of buildings if it had directly impacted the city at a high angle? I think the damage would have been catastrophic and the death toll in the thousands.
>
>
> Michael Farmer
Received on Tue 26 Mar 2013 12:26:25 AM PDT