Record Meteorite Hits Norway

equex256 writes "Early Wednesday morning, a meteorite streaked across the sky in northern Norway, near Finland and Russia. A witness (Article in Norwegian) went up the mountain to where it hit and reported seeing large boulders that had fallen out of the mountainside, along with many broken trees. Norwegian astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard told Aftenposten, Norway's largest newspaper, that he would compare the explosive force of the impact with the Hiroshima bomb. This meteorite is suspected to be much larger than the 90-kilo (198-pound) meteorite which hit Alta in 1904, previously recognized as the largest to hit Norway. From the article: 'Røed Ødegaard said the meteorite was visible to an area of several hundred kilometers despite the brightness of the midnight sunlit summer sky. The meteorite hit a mountainside in Reisadalen in North Troms.'"

Hiroshima?

[Durrok]

I guess but if I recall correctly hiroshima did a little bit more then just "blow in some curtains". Even if accurate this is a pretty bad metaphor, the Hiroshima bomb brings on ideas of destruction and chaos. Even if you took the radiation aspect away from the Hiroshima bomb it still would have done far more damage. Guess the whole line of "location, location, location" really is true.

Re:Hiroshima?

[Schemat1c]

Anyway, the point is that even if this meteor was "substantially bigger" than the 200-pound record holder, I find it extremely hard to believe that it would do even a miniscule fraction of the what the A-bomb did.

It probably wouldn't be so hard to believe if it hit downtown Manhattan.

Re:The Hit

[Ironsides]

Im just happy that it didnt hit anywhere else. Like New York, or any other big city.

I almost (alomst!) wish it landed near enough one to cause some decent damage. Then maybe people would take the threat of a planet killer serious enough to get a properly funded space program going so a some of us could get off planet (like me). AD ASTRA!

Re:Who is tracking these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is simply too much sky to watch, so our efforts are pretty much useless, we only really watch for the most massive of things, stuff that will end life and etc and even then, we probably wouldnt notice until forward debris started pelting us.

Re:do they ever sleep?

[Anonymous Coward]

"although it looked like they can still play a few rounds of golf before sunset."

A few hundred, given that the sun won't set until the end of July.

Record setting?

[raider_red]

Two issues with this. First, I think whatever hit Tunguska was probably bigger. Second, unless this thing kills most of the major species on earth, it's probabaly nowhere near the record.

It may be the biggest confirmed meteor though.