OK, time for another thought experiment, along with a few calculations.  Let’s talk about our favorite “meteorite” for a moment, Chebarkul. The latest estimates place the explosion from the meteorite @ 500 kilotons, that is equivalent to 500,000 tons of  Trinitrotoluene, better known as TNT. If you watched the TV show “Gunsmoke” as a kid like I did, you will remember Festus running around with a bottle of liquid TNT and trying not to shake it or it would explode, very reactive stuff depending upon its form. 500 ktons is over 20 times the strength of each of the Atomic bombs dropped in WWII.

TNT equivalent is a method of quantifying the energy released in explosions. The ton (or tonne, i.e. metric ton) of TNT is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 gigajoules, which is approximately the amount of energy released in the detonation of one ton of TNT. The megaton of TNT is a unit of energyequal to 4.184 petajoules.^[1]

Now, the latest estimates have logged the meteorite weighing in between 7,000 and 10,000 tons based upon a radius of approximately 55 feet. You might ask yourself, now how does 10,000 tons of iron/rock explode with the power of 500,000 tons of TNT? That is some very good yield from ordinary metal & rock. I understand it was travelling fast, 19 miles per second and the surface might get very hot and melt parts of it and break it up as it was coming in and it would create a large sonic boom(s), but I fail to see how that translated to an object with 500K/10K = 50 TIMES THE EXPLOSIVE POWER OF TNT.  Remember, this is not a kinetic energy device, this object did not strike anything, it exploded in the atmosphere, so it did not release the kinetic energy due to its velocity all in one place.

Now, authorities recently increased their estimates of the blast by a factor of 1000, which does not give me a whole lot of confidence in any of their calculations, especially since they did not even see it coming. Also, given the fact that they cannot find any pieces larger than a centimeters in size makes me wonder where all of that material is, if it exists.  They NEVER found the Tunguska meteorite, which was much more powerful than this one.  The object also put out a blinding light equivalent to “10 suns” according to a witness.

So let’s focus on what we really have for evidence:  (1)  A blast of 500 KTons, equivalent to a large nuclear weapon. (2) Blinding light. (3) a 25 foot diameter hole in a lake with nothing found by divers in it. (4) a bunch of tiny centimeter sized pebbles worth 40 TIMES GOLD.  I did some math to see what a 10,000 ton meteorite would be worth:

US Debt: 16 Trillion. If I were Russian, I would quit my day job, get on my hands and knees, put on headphones and IPod and maybe crank some AC/DC while I search for them nuggets. But be very careful because according to the experts those  nuggets appear to have 50 times the explosive power of TNT if you heat them up or shake them. That is of course if all that baryonic matter really does exist in the first place…

Godspeed

References
Copyright 2012 Stewart D. Simonson All Rights Reserved

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