Meteor explodes over Vermont with the force of 440 pounds of TNT

DeepseekerADS

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https://www.livescience.com/vermont-meteor-explodes.html

By Rafi Letzter - Staff Writer a day ago

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It was the size of a bowling ball but exploded like 440 pounds of TNT

A meteor streaked through the night sky over Vermont on Sunday (March 7), creating a spectacular light show and causing Earth-shaking booms as it burned through the atmosphere.

The meteor's explosive passage through the atmosphere released the equivalent of 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of TNT, suggesting that the meteor was likely 10 pounds (4.5 kg) and 6 inches (15 centimeters) in diameter, according to NASA Meteor Watch.

The space rock smacked into the atmosphere at about 42,000 mph (68,000 kph), according to NASA. It appeared over the northern part of the state as a bright fireball at 5:38 p.m. EST, just before sunset.

In comments on NASA's initial Facebook post about the incident, people claimed to have seen the rock from as far west as Saratoga, New York, as far north as Quebec, and as far east as Watertown, Massachusetts.
Local news station WCAX3 reported calls from all over the state after the event, with Vermonters describing a "loud boom and body-rattling vibration" as the meteor passed overhead.

"I was fortunate to hear and see it by the Missisquoi River at the Missisquoi Wildlife Refuge in Swanton, VT, just before sunset," wrote Chris Hrotic, a commenter on NASA's initial post about the event. "No loud boom as reported by others, but a rushing sound that made me look up at just the right moment. It was extremely bright and absolutely spectacular!"

ased on eyewitness accounts, NASA estimates that the fireball first appeared 52 miles (84 km) over Mount Mansfield State Forest just east of Burlington, the state's largest city. It then progressed 33 miles (53 km) northeast toward the Canadian border, disappearing 33 miles (53 km) above the ground south of the town of Newport.

According to NASA, the shock wave was a result of the meteor fracturing due to atmospheric pressure. As the bowling ball-size chunk of a larger parent asteroid moved at nearly 55 times the speed of sound through the atmosphere, pressure built up in front of it and a vacuum formed behind it. Eventually, the stress of that differential caused the rock to explode.
 

mike b

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I was never very good at math but that being said I would like to know how they figured out it exploded with the force of "440 pounds" of TNT, and I want to see their work.
 

Fat

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I was never very good at math but that being said I would like to know how they figured out it exploded with the force of "440 pounds" of TNT, and I want to see their work.

More powerful than a steaming locomotive, able to leap tall tales with a single jump. Its like the 100 year floods we have every 20 years...
 

xr7ator

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Climate change is allowing these rascal rocks into our atmosphere! The sky IS falling!
})
 

Charl

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I was never very good at math but that being said I would like to know how they figured out it exploded with the force of "440 pounds" of TNT, and I want to see their work.

I’m not good at math either, but they do have many data points with any bolide. And in this case, they have multiple videos, sound recordings, and over 100 witness reports. They usually can figure out the energy released with any bolide captured on film....

https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/

Consider the Chelyabinsk meteor: “The air burst occurred at approximately 15 to 25 km (10 to 15 mi) above the ground. The total energy released was equivalent to nearly 500 kilotons of TNT (2.1 PJ), which would make it 20–30 times more powerful than the atomic bombs detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Over 1000 injuries, most from shattered glass. If it had exploded just a few miles lower, over 1 million fatalities from the shock wave....
 

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Fat

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.......over 100 witness reports......let me guess........

........” I was over here minding my own business and all of a sudden......BOOM...That was the loudest boom I’ve heard in my entire life”?
 

Charl

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.......over 100 witness reports......let me guess........

........” I was over here minding my own business and all of a sudden......BOOM...That was the loudest boom I’ve heard in my entire life”?

What they do is collect witness accounts of the visible fireball from at least 3 different directions, allowing them to triangulate and figure out where pieces may have fallen. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has stated that fragments may have reached the ground with this fireball. Given its small size, likely vaporized completely. If pieces did reach he ground, it is a forested terrain, and would be very difficult to find fragments for that reason.
 

teleprospector

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I was never very good at math but that being said I would like to know how they figured out it exploded with the force of "440 pounds" of TNT, and I want to see their work.
All TNT force measurements are based off Wile E. Coyote's misadventures and go from there.
wileEcoyote2.jpg
Jon 8-) :cat::occasion14: :headbang:
 

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