3 ms·

How much warning did we have for this Nuclear sized explosion to happen over California? Why am I just now hearing about this after the event? Are these aster

• Sharlin 14y ago
  It's currently not feasible to track such small objects. Fortunately, there's no real need to - a kiloton-scale explosion high in the atmosphere is pretty much a non-event. Asteroids circa 10m in diameter impact the atmosphere approximately once per year - no casualties have ever been recorded from such events (actually, there are no human casualties from any impact event in the recorded history.) The real blind spot currently lies in the 100m scale - these could cause massive local damage on impact (cf. Tunguska) and there are no comprehensive tracking programs in place at the time. Such events are predicted to occur every 100 to 1000 years (but the probability of hitting a densely inhabited area is still extremely low.)