Latest news with #Tunguska
Time of India
30-06-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Asteroid Day 2025: 5 deadly asteroid events Earth didn't see coming
Most of the time, asteroids pass Earth unnoticed, lost in the vastness of space. But not always. A few have made their way down– and when they did, the consequences were devastating. Some left behind craters, others wiped out entire ecosystems. That's why June 30 is marked as Asteroid Day, a global reminder of what these space rocks are capable of. The date goes back to 1908, when a huge explosion above Siberia– now known as the Tunguska event– flattened forests across Russia. Here are five times in Earth's history when asteroids didn't just fly by– they struck hard. Chelyabinsk, Russia – 2013 In February 2013, a bright light appeared in the sky over Chelyabinsk. At first, it looked like a shooting star, but then it exploded in the air. The blast was so strong that it broke windows across the city. Alarms rang out, and people rushed to take cover. More than 1,500 people were hurt, mostly by broken glass. The asteroid, about 20 metres wide, broke apart around 30 kilometres above the ground. It didn't leave a crater, but it still caused serious damage. The entire event was caught on security cameras, making it clear that space threats are real– and can happen without warning. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch CFD với công nghệ và tốc độ tốt hơn IC Markets Đăng ký Undo Tunguska, Siberia – 1908 It happened early one morning over the forests of Siberia. A massive explosion shook the sky, and trees fell across the land for miles. There was no visible fireball, just a wave of destruction that spread through the wilderness. Nearly 80 million trees were knocked down. People in nearby villages felt the ground shake. For days, the sky stayed unusually bright at night. Scientists believe a 100-metre-wide asteroid exploded in the air before reaching the ground. No crater was found, but the damage covered 2,000 square kilometres. It's still the biggest asteroid-related explosion recorded in modern history. Meteor Crater , Arizona – 50,000 years ago In the desert of northern Arizona, there's a well-preserved crater about 1.2 kilometres wide. It was created thousands of years ago by a 50-metre-wide metallic asteroid, long before humans lived in the area. Today, it's called Meteor Crater or Barringer Crater, and scientists still study it to understand how planets react to powerful impacts. Unlike many old craters that have worn away over time, this one has stayed mostly intact, offering a rare look into Earth's ancient past. Chesapeake Bay, USA – 35 million years ago Long before Chesapeake Bay existed, a massive asteroid hit what is now the eastern coast of the United States. The impact created a huge 85-kilometre-wide crater, which is now hidden beneath rock and water. Years later, scientists used seismic surveys to find the shape of the crater beneath the bay. The asteroid was likely around 2 kilometres wide. The strike changed the region's underground structure and even affected how water flows and how the coastline looks today. Chicxulub, Mexico – 66 million years ago This is the asteroid impact most people hear about in school– the one linked to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The asteroid itself was huge, about 10 kilometres wide, but the real damage came from what happened after it hit. The collision sparked massive wildfires, threw dust into the air, blocked sunlight, and caused temperatures to drop. Ecosystems broke down, and nearly 75% of all life on Earth disappeared. The Chicxulub Crater, found beneath Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, still marks the site of that impact– and the global silence that followed.
NDTV
29-06-2025
- Science
- NDTV
Here's Why June 30 Is Celebrated As World Asteroid Day
The world celebrates June 30 as World Asteroid Day to commemorate the Tunguska event, a massive asteroid explosion that occurred over Russia's Siberia on the same day in 1908. This event is considered the largest asteroid impact in Earth's recent history, flattening around 2,000 square kilometres of forest and releasing energy equivalent to 185 Hiroshima bombs. The event's remoteness led to a lack of immediate attention, both within Russia and globally. The first scientific expedition didn't reach the area until 1927, nearly 19 years after the event. Despite the delay, the expedition found extensive evidence of the asteroid's impact, including shock wave damage and heat blast effects. World Asteroid Day aims to educate the public about asteroid risks and impact hazards. It encourages investment in space science and technology. The awareness also helps in developing strategies for asteroid detection, tracking and deflection. This year, the world celebrates the 10th anniversary of Asteroid Day. UN adopted a resolution for asteroid awareness The United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/71/90 in December 2016, declaring June 30 International Asteroid Day in order to recognise the global importance of asteroid impact awareness and the need for cooperation to prevent potential threats. The decision by the General Assembly was taken after a proposal by the Association of Space Explorers, which was endorsed by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). International Year of Asteroid Awareness The UN has declared 2029 the International Year of Asteroid Awareness and Planetary Defence, coinciding with the close approach of asteroid 99942 Apophis. On April 13, 2029, Apophis will safely pass within 32,000 kilometres of Earth's surface, closer than some geostationary satellites. It will be visible to the naked eye in parts of Europe, Africa and Western Asia. Apophis is approximately 340 meters in diameter, roughly the size of three football fields. It is currently orbiting the Sun every 323 days, but its orbit will change after the 2029 flyby. Apophis will appear as a bright, fast-moving point of light in the sky. Its close approach offers a rare opportunity for scientists to study asteroids. NASA's DART mission NASA has already tested planetary defence strategies with its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) space mission. The DART mission was the first-ever mission aimed at demonstrating the kinetic impactor technique, a method of deflecting asteroids by intentionally crashing a spacecraft into them.
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Meteor Fragments Hit the Southeast U.S. Here's What to Know
Aiken, South Carolina - June 26, 2025 Credit - Bryan Jennings Updyke The inner solar system is a lot calmer than it was 4 billion years ago, during what's known as the heavy bombardment period. Over the course of that violent stretch, which lasted about 500 million years, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the moon were regularly pounded by asteroids, meteors, and other cosmic ordnance, many of the objects as big as the six-mile-wide rock that wiped out the dinosaurs. Things have gotten a lot quieter since then, but that's not to say everything has gone entirely still. Earth still lives inside a shooting gallery, with thousands of objects—totaling about 48.5 tons per year, according to NASA—entering the atmosphere. Yesterday, one of those space boulders exploded in the skies over Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina at 11:51 a.m EDT, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The brilliant flash, which was accompanied by a sonic boom that many mistook for an earthquake, resulted in hundreds of calls and posts to the American Meteor Society (AMS), NASA's recommended organization for reporting meteoric fireballs. In Henry County, Ga., one house was struck by debris that broke through the roof and landed inside the residence. There were no reported injuries. 'The Henry County Emergency Management Agency [EMA] passed along to us that a citizen reported that a 'rock' fell through their ceiling around the time of the reports of the 'earthquake,'' the NWS said in a Facebook post. 'Henry County EMA also reported that the object broke through the roof, then the ceiling, before cracking the laminate on the floor and stopping.' The possibility of something tumbling from the skies this week was not entirely unexpected. Yesterday's event occurred during the ongoing Bootid meteor shower, which happens once every 6.37 years, when Earth passes through the remnants of the tail of Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke. The Bootid is just one of dozens of known showers the AMS lists on its website. Many of those events produce only a fine mist of meteor fragments, visible only at night in dark conditions away from city lights, and commonly called shooting stars. Yesterday's rock was of a decidedly greater caliber, one big enough to be classified as a bolide, a meteor with enough mass to cause a bright flash and a sonic boom as it slams into the atmosphere, but too small for most of it to reach the ground without being incinerated first. To qualify as a bolide, an incoming meteor must reach the brightness of Venus, which, like the moon, is often visible in the daytime sky. A few dozen bolides occur each year, according to NASA. The most explosive recent bolide event occurred over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2013, when an object estimated to have measured about 65 ft., detonated in the atmosphere, injuring nearly 1,500 people and damaging 7,200 buildings. Modern history's biggest bolide also struck Russia, in the celebrated Tunguska event of 1908, when a 350-ft. meteor flattened 830 sq. mi. of forest land. Lesser meteoric fireworks are much, much more common than bolides. According to the AMS, several thousand small fireballs erupt in the atmosphere every day, but 'the vast majority of these,' the organization says, 'occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight.' Notwithstanding the Henry County house that got hit by the recent bolide, the odds of any one spot—or any one person—being struck by space debris are vanishingly small. Barely 5% of objects that enter the atmosphere survive the fires of entry and reach the surface. Roughly 70% of that surface is ocean and much of the rest is desert or other sparsely inhabited terrain. Finally, most of the meteorites that do strike the planet are, by the time of impact, micrometeorites—too small to do any damage at all. In all of known human history, in fact, there is only one person who is believed to have been killed by a meteorite—an Indian bus driver who was struck while walking on the campus of an engineering college in the state of Tamil Nadu on Feb. 6, 2016. That effectively puts your odds of meeting the same fate as one in the total number of human beings who have walked the Earth since the dawn of homo sapiens roughly 300,000 years ago. That's not to say there haven't been close calls. On May 1, 1860, a horse was killed by a meteorite strike in Concord, Ohio. In 1954, an Alabama woman—whose picture was published and story was told in the Dec. 13, 1954 issue of LIFE magazine—sustained severe bruising to her hand and side when a 10 lb. meteorite crashed through her roof while she lay napping on her sofa. Put yesterday's event in the category of lightning strikes or shark bites—theoretically possible, highly improbable, one more thing you can take off your worry list. Write to Jeffrey Kluger at
Time of India
20-06-2025
- Science
- Time of India
5 most unique asteroid facts that one should know
When we think of space, usually planets, stars, or black holes steal the spotlight. But asteroids, which also form a crucial part, are as interesting and full of mysteries that are yet to be studied fully by science. In recent decades, missions like NASA's OSIRIS-REx and Japan's Hayabusa have brought back samples, helping us understand these space rocks better than ever. But despite all we've learned, there are still many surprising things about them that most people don't know. Here are five of the most unique and mind-blowing facts about asteroids The Tunguska event shows their destructive power On June 30, 1908, a massive explosion over Siberia flattened 2,000 square kilometers of forest, yet left no visible crater. Known as the Tunguska event, it's believed to have been caused by an asteroid or comet fragment exploding in the atmosphere. Had it struck a populated area, the devastation would have been catastrophic. This incident is one of the important reasons behind the founding of Asteroid Day. Representative Image Asteroids were once called planets When the first few asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, were discovered in the early 1800s, astronomers actually classified them as planets. They orbited the Sun just like the others, so the logic made sense at the time. But as more and more of these objects were found between Mars and Jupiter, it became clear they belonged to a unique category. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Free P2,000 GCash eGift UnionBank Credit Card Apply Now Undo By the mid-19th century, the term 'asteroid' became the norm. Interestingly, Ceres had some exceptional traits that is why it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Most asteroids live between two planets Today, over a million asteroids have been identified, and the majority of them orbit the Sun in the space between Mars and Jupiter. This region is known as the Main Asteroid Belt. However, asteroids aren't limited to just that area. Some travel near Earth, others remain at Jupiter's Lagrange points, and these asteroids are referred to as Trojan asteroids. A few asteroids even orbit closer to the Sun than Venus. Despite their small size, they're everywhere, and scientists are discovering more with new missions. They are not remains of a broken planet A popular myth suggests the asteroid belt was once a planet that broke apart. But in reality, the total mass of all asteroids in the belt is only about 4% of our Moon. That's not nearly enough to make up a planet. Instead, scientists believe these rocks are leftover building blocks from the early solar system. Due to the powerful gravity of Jupiter, these bits and pieces never formed into a full planet and have been drifting in space ever since. Some asteroids grow tails like comets While comets are known for their glowing tails, some asteroids in the Main Belt have been spotted doing the same. These strange 'active asteroids' occasionally release dust and gas, creating a comet-like appearance. Scientists think this may happen because they contain water ice, which evaporates when exposed to sunlight. In some cases, these could actually be ancient comets that have lost most of their icy material. Either way, they blur the line between two very different types of space objects.
ABC News
31-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Meet the NASA scientist tasked with identifying asteroids on a collision course with Earth
The bright green meteor that blazed a trail over the skies of southern WA earlier this month served as a spectacular reminder of just how vulnerable the Earth is to threats from space. Country police officer and amateur meteorite hunter Marcus Scott found a tennis ball sized piece of the space rock, dubbed the Mother's Day meteorite, in a salt lake about 460 kilometres east of Perth. Hollywood has taught us to fear giant 'planet killer' asteroids, but it's the smaller space rocks that could destroy an entire city. Thankfully, a NASA scientist is on the case, with the job of protecting the planet against such threats. Dr Kelly Fast oversees NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which is responsible for identifying and tracking asteroids, and figuring out if any of these rocky bodies could be on a collision course with Earth. Larger meteors can survive the trip through the atmosphere, often in spectacular fashion, like the Mother's Day meteorite which was estimated to be about half a metre in size. It slammed into the atmosphere above WA travelling at about 15 kilometres a second, before breaking up and landing in a salt lake in the Goldfields. Dr Fast and her colleagues around the world track more than 37,000 near-Earth asteroids, with the US Congress expecting NASA to find 90 per cent of asteroids larger than 140 metres. It's the smaller asteroids that pose the danger because they are harder to find, but could still destroy a land mass the size of an Australian city or even a state. "The asteroid hazard is a global issue. The first order of business is finding asteroids… it's the only natural disaster that you could potentially prevent," she said. Last year an asteroid named 2024 YR4 was discovered, with initial calculations indicating it could come dangerously close to Earth in just seven years' time. With a diameter of approximately 50 metres, if it struck the earth it could cause widespread devastation of a similar scale to the Tunguska event in Siberia in 1908. That explosion occurred over a sparsely populated area, flattening more than 2,000 square kilometres of forest. Dr Fast said there were a few different forms of technology that could potentially be used to neutralise the threat from an asteroid, and they all sound like they are straight out of a science fiction movie. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphous in September 2022, successfully changing the orbit of the 160-metre diameter celestial body. "That was the simplest technique — to impact an asteroid and change its speed, and it was successfully tested with DART," Dr Fast said. To date, it's been the only real world test to save the planet from destruction caused by a rogue space rock. Other techniques being studied include ion beam deflection, using a spacecraft to fire charged particles at the asteroid, giving it a slight nudge to change its orbit. The 'Star Trek' sounding "gravity tractor" is another possible solution, and entails parking an object next to the asteroid and using the slight change in gravity to change its orbit. "And then there's what we always like to call the Hollywood option, because it's what's always used in the movies — a nuclear deflection," Dr Fast said. Although she warned such a technique could create even more of a hazard from the debris field of an exploded asteroid. Dr Fast is hoping there won't be a need to use any of these techniques in our lifetime, but says developing the technology to protect the planet will be a gift for future generations. This week Dr Fast spoke at the Australian Space Awards in Sydney, where she emphasised Australia's importance in keeping the planet safe from the threat of asteroids. And while Australia might be half a world away from NASA headquarters in Washington D.C., two teams of Australian researchers form part of the International Asteroid Warning Network. The University of New South Wales Canberra team search for asteroids using optical telescopes as well as the Parkes Radio Telescope, famous for its role in broadcasting Neil Armstrong's moon walk. On the other side of the country, researchers at the University of Western Australia use the one-metre diameter Zadko Telescope, located about 70 kilometres north of Perth in Gingin, to scan the skies for threats from space. Hollywood-born Dr Fast has a degree in astrophysics and a doctorate in astronomy. She also has the honour of having a nearly three-kilometre diameter space rock named after her, Asteroid Kellyfast. "Like pretty much all asteroids that are named for people, let's hope it stays safely out in the main belt [of space]" she said with a laugh.
