TWO LARGE METEORS EXPLODE ABOVE PACIFIC WITH FORCE OF 8,000 TONS OF TNT
Geschrieben von Mr. Burns am 31. Mai 2001 17:46:59:
MAY 30, 2001 -- TWO LARGE METEORS EXPLODE ABOVE PACIFIC WITH FORCE OF 8,000 TONS
OF TNT -- (Discovery News) - Two boulders from space have exploded in mid-air
off the coast of Mexico, say government scientists who just last week
declassified the discoveries made with special listening devices and military
satellites. In April, the larger of the two meteors roared into the atmosphere,
releasing the explosive power of 6,000 to 8,000 tons of TNT. The scientists said
it was probably about as big as a Volkswagen Beetle and came down in the Pacific
several hundred miles off the coast of the Mexican state of Baja California
Norte. The smaller - but also impressive - meteor fell last August and was about
six feet in diameter, with about half the explosive power. It came apart over
the Pacific off Acapulco. "The April 23rd event got down to 28 kilometers, so
it's fairly tough stuff," said Doug ReVelle, a researcher at Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico. In other words, it survived the heat and pressure of
entering the atmosphere and came within 28 kilometers of the Earth's surface
before it blew apart. Both meteors were probably made of relatively sturdy rock,
said ReVelle. They were probably not metallic meteors, however, or else they
would have made it to the ocean and created an impressive splash. Pebble and
fist-sized space debris pelt Earth on a daily basis, said Donald Yeomans of the
NASA Near Earth Object Program at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Larger objects like these are less frequent, but they do hit - as the dinosaurs
found out when a huge meteor slammed into the Earth 65 million years ago and
wiped them out. Reports like those from Los Alamos help NASA make its point
about the hazards posed by meteors, he said. "It kind of sensitizes the public
and Congress." ReVelle and colleague Rod Whitaker detected the meteors with a
network of microphones that pick up "infra-sound," a sound so low that humans
can't hear it. The system is designed to detect the sounds made by clandestine
nuclear weapons testing. Researchers combined the infra-sound system with
flashes of light seen by military satellites to zero in on the locations and
power of the meteors. It's not known whether anyone actually saw the meteors
fall.