Researchers warn that the risk of space rocks, like the one that exploded over Russia in February 2013, hitting the Earth is ten times larger than previously estimated.
Using videos from security and dashboard cameras, researchers were able to reconstruct the asteroid and its trajectory through the atmosphere.
Three separate papers out this week agree that the asteroid, which caused an intense flash of blinding light at daybreak on Feb. 15 near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, was nearly twice as heavy as earlier estimated and had the explosive power of 500,000 tons of TNT.
"Luckily, most of the kinetic energy was absorbed by the atmosphere," said Jiri Borovicka, an asteroid researcher at the Astronomical Institute near Prague and lead author on a study published in Nature. "A more solid rock that might have blasted closer to the ground would have caused considerably more damage."
According to Borovicka, the asteroid approached the Earth from a region in the sky that is inaccessible to ground telescopes. The asteroid should have been visible six weeks before the impact, but only during the day, when the sky is too bright to spot objects of its size.
Comment: Don't rely on the psychopathic elites informing the general public of any impending catastrophe from earth bound space rocks. See also: Military hush up: Incoming space rocks now classified
Sequester shuts down space surveillance system