Had the asteroid been a little bit bigger,this could have been catastropic,the story goes on to say.
It makes you wonder how many other asteroids there are on a collision course with Earth that no one has yet noticed.
[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6444895/Asteroid-explosion-over-Indonesia-raises-fears-about-Earths-defences.html]www.telegraph.co.uk[/u rl]
(visit the link for the full news article)
From NASA:
A report from Elizabeth Silber and Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario indicates that several international very-long wavelength infrasound detectors recorded the blast and fixed the position near the coastal city of Bone in South Sulawesi, island of Sulewesi. They note that the blast was in the 10 to 50 kT range with the higher end of this range being more likely. Assuming an estimated size of about 5-10 meters in diameter, we would expect a fireball event of this magnitude about once every 2 to 12 years on average. As a rule, the most common types of stony asteroids would not be expected to cause ground damage unless their diameters were about 25 meters in diameter or larger.
neo.jpl.nasa.gov...
No telescope spotted the asteroid ahead of its impact. That is not surprising, given that only a tiny fraction of asteroids smaller than 100 metres across have been catalogued, says Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yet objects as small as 20 or 30 metres across may be capable of doing damage on the ground, he says. "If you want to find the smallest objects you have to build more, larger telescopes," says Spahr. "A survey that finds all of the 20-metre objects will cost probably multiple billions of dollars."
www.newscientist.com...
[edit on 27/10/2009 by Silcone Synapse]
