Powerful Asteroids Strike Earth with Surprising Frequency
April 25, 2014
Since the start of the 21st century, dozens of incoming asteroids have slammed into Earth, some of them packing far more energy than a city-destroying atomic bomb, a new animation illustrates.
The visualization was released in honor of Earth Day by the B612 Foundation — an asteroid-hunting non-profit organization founded by former NASA astronauts — to highlight the alarming frequency of these extraterrestrial collisions.
The video is based on new data from a network of sensors around the globe that is designed to detect nuclear detonations and is operated by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization. Between 2000 and 2013, these instruments detected 26 explosions on the planet ranging in energy from 1 to 600 kilotons, all caused by asteroid impacts, B612 Foundation officials said. For comparison, the nuclear bomb that flattened Hiroshima in 1945 burst with the energy of 15 kilotons.
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