I once worked in Winslow Arizona, where the main tourist attraction is a nearby meteor crater that they tout as the “best preserved meteor crater in the world”.
the photo is from their website, and if you ever get out there, consider a trip to the site.
It’s not as much fun as the Roswell museum, (they don’t have festivals like Roswell, where you can dress up like your favorite outer space hero) but it’s scarier…after all, we may have been visited by E.T. in 1948, but he hasn’t threatened the earth with destruction since then. On the other hand, a lot of us have seen small meteors or “shooting stars” and watched Armageddon…. and this threat is more like the tsunami: it will literally come out of the blue and kill people without warning.
Those who keep up with such things know about the Tunguska event. That was when something exploded over Siberia. What exactly exploded has kept scientists and conspiracy theorists busy for years, since no trace of a meteor crater was reported.
The latest theory had been that the object was indeed a meteor, but that it was a lot smaller than previously thought.
The Sandia researchers concluded:
Simulations show that the material of an incoming asteroid is compressed by the increasing resistance of Earth’s atmosphere. As it penetrates deeper, the more and more resistant atmospheric wall causes it to explode as an airburst that precipitates the downward flow of heated gas.
Because of the additional energy transported toward the surface by the fireball, what scientists had thought to be an explosion between 10 and 20 megatons was more likely only three to five megatons…
A five megaton asteroid is a lot smaller than one that is 20 megatons, and a lot more common, making the chances of such a destructive even go up and the chances of destroying the meteor go a lot lower. The Sandia website has lots of nice computer simulations of meteor strikes for you to watch.
The destructive impact of rocks with momentum from space was anticipated by Heinlein, and indeed “concrete JDAMS” are being used by the US Military for pinpoint destruction of certain targets.
So what is our defense, or is there one? How much should we worry about this new threat?
Well, Behala na…it’s God’s will… whatever…or in the words of the immortal sage Alfred E Newman: What, me worry?
Remember: it has been pointed out that the Tunguska event, had it occured 4 hours and 47 minutes later, would have wiped out St.Petersburg (AKA Leningrad).
Sometimes mankind gets lucky…
——————
Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. Her website is Finest kind Clinic and Fishmarket.
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThis is what Carl Sagan inhis book Cosmos concluded about the Tunguska Cosmic Body (TCB):
“The key point of the Tunguska Event is that there was a
tremendous explosion, a great shock wave, an enormous
forest fire, and yet no impact crater at the site”.
Everyone seems to believe that because there is no crater or no immediate
evidence of a body they assume that the TCB must have been destroyed in
the enormous explosion.
The question no one has asked is:
Obvious question 1: What if the reason there is no crater might be becasue
the TCB was not destroyed in the blast?
Some people might now think that question is unconventional or
unscientific and perhaps is the reason why no one asks it.
Others may not and so lets continue with the next obvious (to some) question:
Obvious question 2: If the TCB was not destroyed then might it still be in the
vicinity of the earth?
Which leads to the next obvious (to some) question.
Obvious question 3: Does that mean that some people might have seen the TCB
since the initial blast?
and the next:
Obvious question 4: If they saw the TCB would they know what they were looking at?
Finally an answer from the Russian Newspaper Sibir in the town of Irkutsk printed
the week of the blast:
‘in the village of Nizhne-Karelinsk in the northwest high above the horizon, the peasants saw a body shining very brightly -(too bright for the naked eye) with a bluish white light. It moved vertically down-wards for about ten minutes. The body was in the form of a ‘pipe’ (i.e. cylindrical). The sky was cloudless, except that low down on the horizon in the direction in which this glowing body was observed; a small dark cloud was noticed. It was hot and dry and when the shining body approached the ground it seemed to be pulverized and in its place a huge cloud of black smoke was formed and a loud crash, not like thunder, but as if from the fall of large stones, or from gunfire, was heard. All the buildings shook and at the same time, a forked tongue of flame broke through the cloud. The old women wept, everyone thought that the end of the world was approaching.”
which leads to the next obvious question:
Obvious question 5: Has anyone seen a cosmic body like this since 1908?
Check out this web site and look at the last video number 5:
http://www.hbccufo.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1345
Amazing eh!
If you are the unconventional sort who is brave enough to find answers to those
more obvious (to some) questions then perhaps you might read this:
http://ablebodiedman.blogspot.com/
I think Carl Sagan was right when he said:
“Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known.”
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/carlsagan101620.html
Which leads to the next obious question:
Obvious question 5: Am I unconventional or is everyone else?
best regards
Geoff
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