A coincidence?

[bakerjw]

I find it quite a coincidence that we have a meteor enter our atmosphere in a spectacular fashion as we prepare for an asteroid to pass about 17,000 miles from our planet.

[silencertalk]

I find it funny that they say it had the power of an atomic bomb and then said it was "several kilotons."

It was 1/25,000 as powerful as the most powerful device detonated.

Even the WWII Nagasaki bomb was 10x that.

[JacksonBrowne]

Fox's reporting was terrible! They said "massive meteorite" (it was the size of a table) and were just generally goofy with figures and facts. Robin Meade is not the world's best science reporter, either.

[silencertalk]

Now they are saying "While NASA estimated the meteor was only about the size of a bus and weighed an estimated 7,000 tons, it exploded with the force of 20 atomic bombs."

If it was 20 atomic bombs, how come no one died? Answer - aside from no radiation, it they seem to be fudging the data by including the energy dissipated along its entire path rather than just at the end.

[bakerjw]

It was still damn impressive to see what kind of damage that an air blast such as it created could cause. Tunguska comes to mind.

[JacksonBrowne]

I was thinking the same thing. Until very recently airbursts were (sort-of) open to debate as a frequent event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P4-JdHL2j0

[silencertalk]

TV said once every 50 years, though this one time has not happened since 1908.

[CThomas]

I was watching Harris Faulkner on Fox yesterday as she covered the meteorite. At one point they were discussing the 1908 impact in Russia and I could have sworn that she said she was suprised that no one captured it on a cell phone

Not sure I follow the coincidence you ask about. Initially all thought the first one was an off shot of the larger but it was determined to have come from a different path.

[Molon labe]

I have no opinion on this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... ZzG881Vii8