Asteroid impacts on Earth – those on the scale of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago – have been big hits in Hollywood. But in the modern world, are the impacts portrayed in movies like Deep Impact and Armageddon only the stuff of science fiction?

The answer is likely no.

Scientists continue to warn us of the dangers that lurk in the skies above us and in the past dozen or so years, no less than 26 major impacts have occurred around the world. These impacts, while not comparable to the one that killed the dinosaurs, have ranged in energy from 1-600 kilotons. To put this into perspective, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 exploded with the energy of 15 kilotons.

The B612 Foundation released a video showing the locations and energy of these impacts, which occurred between August 25, 2000 and April 30, 2013. These impact sites were picked up using a network of sensors deployed to monitor the Earth for the infrasound signature of nuclear explosions. The data on these asteroid impacts was released by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

….

Read more on Red Orbit