WikimediaThe US Air Force are remaining tight-lipped over a meteor which hit Earth and exploded with 2.1 kilotons of force.
Just to put things into perspective for you, a two kiloton explosion is one which releases as much energy as 2,000 tons of TNT would, if it were to explode.
The meteor is said to have struck Greenland – just 43 kilometres north Thule Air Base on the 25 July, 2018, where an early missile warning was triggered – travelling at a speed of 24.4 kilometres per second.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are said to have confirmed the incident, reports news.com.au, but the US Air force have not yet reported the incident.
Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists, tweeted about the event.
He wrote:
Meteor explodes with 2.1 kilotons force 43 km above missile early warning radar at Thule Air Base.
We’re still here, so they correctly concluded it was not a Russian first strike. There are nearly 2,000 nukes on alert, ready to launch.
Meteor explodes with 2.1 kilotons force 43 km above missile early warning radar at Thule Air Base. https://t.co/qGvhRDXyfK
HT @CasillicWe’re still here, so they correctly concluded it was not a Russian first strike. There are nearly 2,000 nukes on alert, ready to launch. pic.twitter.com/q01oJfRUp4
— Hans Kristensen (@nukestrat) August 1, 2018
Kristensen has stated his concerns how there was no public warning from the US government about the incident.
According to Business Insider, he writes:
Had it entered at a more perpendicular angle, it would have struck the earth with significantly greater force.
He then proceeded to point at the example of the Chelyabinsk meteor – a 20-metre space rock which exploded in the air over Russia without warning on the February 15, 2013.
It was said to be the size of a house, brighter than the sun and visible up to 100 kilometres away.
About 1500 people were injured as a result of glass smashing from windows or other effects of the meteor’s impact as it crashed into earth – the biggest known human toll from a ‘space rock’ impact.
NASA Planetary Defense Officer, Lindley Johnson, said:
The Chelyabinsk event drew widespread attention to what more needs to be done to detect even larger asteroids before they strike our planet.
This was a cosmic wake-up call.
Following the incident in Russia back in 2013, the International Asteroid Warning Network was set up in order to assist governments detect and respond to Near Earth Objects.
However, despite it sounding worse than what it probably is, asteroids entering the earth’s atmosphere are really not that uncommon.
According to a study, referenced by Mr Kristensen himself, a meteor struck earth every 13 days over a 20-year-period, but most tend to break apart when they enter our atmosphere and are deemed ‘harmless’.
Check out this news report below:
It’s all well and good calling them ‘harmless’, but according to author Graham Hancock – a giant meteorite could be on a collision course to destroy us in 2030, reports the Mail Online.
His latest book, Magicians Of The Gods, which was published back in 2015, presents findings from all over the world, and he argues a ‘mini Ice Age’ swept the planet around 13,000 years ago, following a comet strike which caused devastating earthquakes and tsunamis.
He states earth is due to encounter the Taurid meteor stream in just 12 years from now, which Hancock believes could spell disaster for the human race.
He states some of the asteroids could be triple the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
GettyOk Graham, whatever you say – I think I’ll start panicking when NASA spot something first though…
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