Watching the Phoenix incident now. Saw the clip of the meteor. That strike could have happened anywhere in the world and it went to Russia, where most drivers have dash cams for insurance purposes. I am still trying to figure that out!
sharePretty obvious really. Russia is big. Really, really big. Think 13 timezones wide (out of a total possible 24). The biggest contiguous area on the earth's surface (@70%) is of course sea, almost all of which is uninhabited. Ergo, 3 of every 4 such meteor atmospheric explosions would be over the sea, passing unnoticed. The fourth however on average would be over land, statistically most likely to be... you guessed it... Russia.
It's happened before. Google the Tunguska incident, shortly into the 20th century. Both these "incidents" were from extremely small masses. Think the size of a car or at best a lorry perhaps. Now when a meteor of a cubic kilometer or more comes, it isn't going to explode in the atmosphere. It will strike, with a completely gamechanging mass extinction event. Think anything between almost all living things being instantly incinerated at best and all life totally at worst.
This has happened before too. Several times. On average every 100milion years, the last being 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. This is how the moon got there. A meteor strike to the proto-earth. Think about it.
Earth struck the meteor. Not visa-versa.
share