Meteors quietly attacked the earth

A meteorite exploded in the Indonesian sky with the equivalent of three atomic bombs that the US threw at Hiroshima city, but no telescope detected it.

According to astronomers from the University of Western Ontario (Canada), on October 8, the asteroid struck the Earth's atmosphere and headed for South Sulawesi, Indonesia but exploded in the air. The locals discovered the explosion. Stations monitoring the space about 16,000 km away also recorded strong sound waves from the explosion.

What worries the scientific community is that there are no telescopes that detect the meteorite's intrusion. They believe that if the size of the meteorite is larger, it could cause a disaster.

Artwork of meteorite rushing towards the earth.(Photo: Getty Images)

The Telegraph said meteorites are about 10 meters in diameter and rush into the atmosphere at a rate of about 72,000 km / h . Due to friction with the air, it heats up very quickly and explodes with destructive force equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT, or three times the atomic bomb that the US throws into Hiroshima city of Japan in 1945.

Fortunately, because the explosion occurred at a height of 15-20 km above sea level, it did not cause any damage on the ground. However, if the meteorite is larger (with a diameter of 20-30 m), it can cause catastrophic destruction.

"Atomic bomb" space (Photo: kp.ru)

Historically, astronomers have rarely discovered objects less than 100 meters in diameter when they penetrate the earth's atmosphere. Tim Spahr, director of the American Asteroid Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, warns that countless small meteorites have plunged into the globe but we don't know.

" If we want to detect small meteorites, we have to build telescopes larger than all the current lenses. One study shows that the damage that an object from the universe has a diameter of 20 meters can be up to several billion dollars, "he said.