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The second largest meteor blast of its kind to occur in 30 years, with 10 times the energy released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb, has been detected by NASA scientists.
According to NASA, a huge fireball exploded in Earth’s atmosphere over the Bering Sea on December 18, 2018, at around noon local time. This is the second largest to occur in 30 years, with the most recent largest occurring over Chelyabinsk in Russia six years ago.
NASA is constantly probing for near-Earth objects that could wreak havoc and destruction on the planet. However, this blast went largely unnoticed due to where it occurred – over the Bering Sea, off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
Last December, US military satellites detected the blast, and NASA was notified by the US Air Force.
The asteroid came hurtling toward Earth on the steep trajectory of approximately seven degrees at a speed of 20 miles per second. The asteroid measured several meters in size, and exploded approximately 25.6 kilometers above the surface of the Earth. Its impact energy was roughly 173 kilotons.
According to NASA, a lot of the blast occurred over the Bering Sea, which was a blessing for the inhabitants of Earth.
“That’s another thing we have in our defense, there’s plenty of water on the planet,” said NASA near-Earth objects observations program manager Kelly Fast. “That was 40% the energy release of Chelyabinsk, but it was over the Bering Sea so it didn’t have the same type of effect or show up in the news.”
In 2005, Congress gave NASA the task of locating and mapping 90 percent of the near-Earth asteroids that are 460 feet in size or larger by 2020. If asteroids of this size collide with the Earth, they are expected to affect whole regions, which makes them especially dangerous.
However, NASA scientists have estimated that it will take them an additional 30 years from present to complete this congressional assignment. In the meantime, there remains the chance that other large objects like this one could sneak in before they can be detected in advance.
