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Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Cosmic Hole-In-One

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*From Antarctica.  Initially thought to be an electronic glitch.  *Surprise!* 

Dr Klekociuk said that it was thought that the asteroid had come from what is known as the Aten group somewhere between Venus and Earth, ranging anywhere up to 46 million kms from the sun. Measuring roughly 10 metres it is the biggest body to enter Earth's atmosphere in the past decade.

Its travel time from entering Earth's atmosphere 75 kms up until it landed? Just five seconds.

Scientists believe that the asteroid's original size was close to that of a small house weighing a thousand tonnes and that if it had not broken up on entry into the atmosphere its effect on impact would have been that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

"The size of the dust cloud in the stratosphere was 200 kms by 75 kms. Had a cloud that size passed over the sun the light would have dimmed by around 20 per cent.

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)