released the energy of 10 atomic bombs

On December 18, 2018, American satellites saw a “small” flare over the Bering Sea, in the Pacific Ocean. From space the flare may have seemed small, however it was the second largest asteroid explosion recorded in the last 30 years. Off the coast of the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka, energy equivalent to 173 kilotons had just been released.

The asteroid was initially detected by US Air Force satellites, as well as by infrasonic stations installed to detect possible nuclear detonations. However, the CNEOSwhich tracks dangerous objects near Earth, took months to record it. Many times it is necessary to analyze to know exactly what it is about. On the other hand, It occurred in an area of ​​the planet far from the populationso there were no witnesses who could see it and report it.

According to indicated on the BBC At that time, the asteroid was actually only several meters in diameter. At a speed of 32 km/s that size is more than enough to explode with the force of several atomic bombs. More than enough also for the explosion to be seen from space. There is a photograph (at maximum resolution) in which we can see an orange flame in the vast ocean with its white clouds.

We are increasingly able to detect and track the orbits of more asteroids and in general potentially dangerous near-earth objects. In recent years we have even learned to divert them from their orbit. However, there are still many to be recorded and to be able to predict when they will impact the Earth, if there is a possibility that they will do so.

So big that it only occurs two or three times every 100 years

Asteroids reported by the US government from April 15, 1988 to March 15, 2019. Via CNEOS.

This explosion in the Bering Sea is the second largest on record. The largest of all is still that of the Chelyabinsk asteroid in Russia, in 2013. On that occasion andThe asteroid unleashed an energy of 440 kilotonsfell near the city of Chelyabinsk and caused various accidents and injuries. The shock wave and flash of the Chelyabinsk meteorite caused harm to people, including temporary blindness from the flash and injuries from broken glass or debris. There were no confirmed deaths. Some people managed to record it:

If it’s for records neither the Bering Sea nor the Chelyabinsk asteroid are the largest ever recorded. In 1908 an asteroid caused a 12 megaton explosion in Tunguskaa remote region of Siberia (again). But there are still louder explosions, or at least that have been heard louder, like the one that caused the Krakatoa volcano eruption.

Luckily, most asteroids that hit Earth they disintegrate in the atmosphere and They only produce small amounts of “debris” on the earth’s surface. On the other hand, due to the fact that most of the surface is ocean, it can be said that it acts in a way as a shield and also prevents human damage.

Image | CNEOS

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A version of this topic was published in 2019. We have updated it.