The Lovely Few

jtotheizzoe:

Fireball/Meteor Over California/Nevada: How Big Was It?

On Sunday morning, April 22, an enormous explosion occurred over the Sierra Nevadas, rattling windows in California and Nevada. The culprit? A meteor disintegrating in the atmosphere, as captured above by a lucky skywatcher. 

NASA has estimated the size of the object at 70 metric tons, and the explosion was the equivalent of one quarter the nuclear weapon that detonated over Hiroshima. As meteor events go, this was a big one.

It’s unclear whether any fragments may have made it back to Earth. It’s likely that the explosion didn’t completely obliterate the whole rock, but there’s no way of knowing how big remaining fragments might be. Considering that the explosion occurred fairly high in the atmosphere, you’d have to comb an area the size of maybe Connecticut in order to search for leftovers. I’m sure locals are looking, though. 

For more details, check out NASA’s release and map of the explosion location.

(ᔥ NASA)