Never mind seeing a shooting star... how about a meteor!

[craiggroves91]

So lets say a meteor oh... 200ft in diameter were to enter our atmosphere..

Would half of the earth experience destruction of this nature?

Hmm I'm no expert but that doesn't seem logical.

Comparing to the size of the Earth, 200ft in diameter is nothing. The meteor will only affect the part of the Earth that is under it I would think.

[iamsam]

Hmm I'm no expert but that doesn't seem logical.

Comparing to the size of the Earth, 200ft in diameter is nothing. The meteor will only affect the part of the Earth that is under it I would think.

wrong.


A meteorite of any size always causes HUUUUGE damage compared to it's size. Take Meteor Crater for an example. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater) The meteorite that made that crater was 162 feet wide, and the crater is 3891 feet wide, and the blast is estimated at 10 megatons of TNT. That is 10,000,000 tons of TNT.

As a comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was 12 kilotons of TNT, which is 12,000 tons, or in other words, less than 1/800th the strength of the Meteor Crater incident. You would have to destroy Nagasaki over 800 separate times to equal the strength.

And that is from a meteorite smaller than the one suggested above (200 ft dia), and travelling relatively slow at that.

[iamsam]

So lets say a meteor oh... 200ft in diameter were to enter our atmosphere..

Would half of the earth experience destruction of this nature?

If a meteor travelling 19 miles per second (68,400 mph, like the russia one) was still 200 ft in diameter when it hit the ground, there would be most likely global winter for a while and most life would die. The Earth would still be around though and wouldn't be significantly damaged structurally.

If the same meteor was only 200 ft when it first enters the atmosphere, it would actually not make it to the Earth's surface before disintegrating, but according to this simulator, would still produce the energy of 14.2 megatons of TNT, i.e. greater than Meteor Crater, but it would all happen up in the air. This is all assuming 45 deg angle of entry as well.