toobfreak
Tungsten/Glass Member
- Apr 29, 2017
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A meteor just hit us at the highest speed I recall ever hearing of in over 50-60 years of following space events! Fortunately, I think it was fairly small to have broken up at such speed so high in the atmosphere--- likely, it was not big enough or held together well enough to survive the thermal shock of hitting our atmosphere, which is great news compared if the thing had been able to punch through and reach the ground. Mother Earth saves us again.
Most meteors average around 25,000 mph, some are as slow as maybe 12,000 mph; this meteor was not part of a cyclic meteor shower from a broken up comet or the like such as part of the Leonid or Perseid meteor showers, but appears to be a rogue meteor that was alone that came in at us from a random direction, this explains the high rate of speed. These are the hardest to detect. The meteor may have come from outside the solar system perhaps from a direction directly opposite the general direction of the Sun and solar system wheeling about the Milky Way, thus adding our speed about the galaxy to its own speed.
The meteor was estimated to have been traveling about 75,000 mph when it hit us, easily about triple the speed I would normally expect from a common meteor originating from within the Sun's community, and exploded about 40 miles above the ground high over where Massachusetts meets New Hampshire yesterday afternoon.
They estimate the explosion released energy equal to about 300 tons of TNT. The explosion was easily heard state wide as a boom and a rumble, but no damage occurred on the ground.
Most meteors average around 25,000 mph, some are as slow as maybe 12,000 mph; this meteor was not part of a cyclic meteor shower from a broken up comet or the like such as part of the Leonid or Perseid meteor showers, but appears to be a rogue meteor that was alone that came in at us from a random direction, this explains the high rate of speed. These are the hardest to detect. The meteor may have come from outside the solar system perhaps from a direction directly opposite the general direction of the Sun and solar system wheeling about the Milky Way, thus adding our speed about the galaxy to its own speed.
The meteor was estimated to have been traveling about 75,000 mph when it hit us, easily about triple the speed I would normally expect from a common meteor originating from within the Sun's community, and exploded about 40 miles above the ground high over where Massachusetts meets New Hampshire yesterday afternoon.
They estimate the explosion released energy equal to about 300 tons of TNT. The explosion was easily heard state wide as a boom and a rumble, but no damage occurred on the ground.
