3 ms·
It'd be really cool to add some "equivalences" to compare what an asteroid hitting Earth would do, in terms of Mt.
by mrleinad 15y ago
It'd be really cool to add some "equivalences" to compare what an asteroid hitting Earth would do, in terms of Mt.
- uvdiv 15y agoE.g. * Annual impact -- 5-20 kt (~Hiroshima) * Indonesia superbolide (2009) -- 50 kt * Tunguska (Siberia 1908) -- 10-15 Mt (~large hydrogen bomb) * K-T extinction (65 MYA) -- 10^14 t = 100,000,000 Mt (complete detonation of ~2 million tons fusion fuel) I'm not sure how far you can compare these figures -- issues like (i) how much energy is released as an atmospheric shock wave vs. infrared radiation vs. heat; (ii) what altitude the explosion is at. http://www.nature.com/news/2002/021121/full/news021118-7.html http://www.nature.com/news/2002/021121/full/news021118-7.htm... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6913/full/nature01238.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6913/full/nature0... http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news165.html http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news165.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Tertiary_extinction_event#Impact_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Tertiary_ext...