As a public service, here is the story behind the Monday March 2 asteroid approach to our fair planet. It’s been difficult to find much information about it, but I have been able to put together this much: It was the size of a 10-story building. What kind of building?—A skinny hotel with a view from every room, or a mighty distribution center that covers four city blocks? If we had been hit, it would have had the power of a nuclear weapon. Which nuclear weapon? They range in size from the artillery shells that can ruin your day all the way up to the population-clearing neutron bombs that don’t damage buildings and infrastructure, just kill people and all other living things for miles (kilometers) around (except cockroaches, of course). Supposedly this PHA (potentially hazardous asteroid) came within 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) or so, well within the distance from here to the moon (your mileage/kilometerage may vary).Then, oddly, the story was dropped. Internet searching produced a little more data, but not much. Are we getting tired of asteroid impact news? With the economy in the toilet, maybe asteroid damage would be barely noticeable.
Graphic: Musings of a Slowly Rotting Mind
2 comments:
In our case, the meteorite news was overshadowed by the news that somebody absent-mindedly (absent_mindedly?) left two sacks of gelegnite at a local shopping centre.
Hello. I mean, local boom as opposed to world-shattering ka-boom? Which would YOU want to know about?
It turns out we earthlings didn’t see this one coming till maybe three days before it flew by!
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