Tunguska study: Small asteroids pack a wallop

Sandia National Laboratories researchers have concluded that the asteroid that spectacularly blasted trees over Tunguska, Siberia, on June 30, 1908, was much smaller than earlier estimates suggested.

A supercomputer simulation shows the asteroid's mass turned into an expanding jet of high-temperature gas traveling at supersonic speeds, the Albuquerque, N.M.-based lab said in a December statement.

"That such a small object can do this kind of destruction suggests that smaller asteroids are something to consider," principal investigator Mark Boslough said. His advice: "We should be making more efforts at detecting the smaller ones than we have till now."

[mikalg]

Detection...

Detection is fine, however, until something can be done about protecting against an actual strike.....its pretty useless to know when the world will end....so to speak.

[hellsyes]

Not an earth-shattering event

The Tunguska meteor wasn't big enough to cause global disaster.

The think about Tunguska meteor is that it exploded over an uninhabited forest. If this asteroid had exploded over even a small city, the effects on human life would have been a lot worse. Asteroids of this size actually could be protected against by evacuating the area that it is going to impact.

[cubesquared]

Define Smaller

Well now, just how small are we talkin' here?