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Did Russians Create Phony Meteor As Business Opportunity?
The 10,000-ton meteor entered the Earth’s atmosphere producing a sonic boom. It shattered into pieces between 18 and 32 miles above Chelyabinsk, to the east of the Ural Mountains in southern Russia.
Debris fell on the city, injuring around 1,000 people, damaging buildings and leaving a large hole in an ice-covered lake.
The spot could now feature in plans to capitalize on international fascination with the event and bring tourists to the city
The recent meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk brought to the forefront a topic that has worried astronomers for years, namely that an impactor from space could cause widespread human fatalities. Indeed, the thousand+ injured recently in Russia was a wake-up call. Should humanity be worried about impactors? “Hell yes!” replied astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson to CNN’s F. Zakharia .
The geological and biological records attest to the fact that some impactors have played a major role in altering the evolution of life on Earth, particularly when the underlying terrestrial material at the impact site contains large amounts of carbonates and sulphates. The dating of certain large impact craters (50 km and greater) found on Earth have matched events such as the extinction of the Dinosaurs (Hildebrand 1993, however see also G. Keller’s alternative hypothesis). Ironically, one could argue that humanity owes its emergence in part to the impactor that killed the Dinosaurs. MOREHERE
