Why Asteroids are important to Earth’s Future prospects for Interstellar Travel
On February 15, 2013, the Earth survived an expected near-miss with asteroid 367943 Duende.
What most people didn't expect was for another asteroid to also come so close as to produce visible effect over Russia. Russian dashcams unexpectedly captured footage of the 19-m wide Chelyabinsk superbolide explosion in our upper atmosphere.
In Astronomy and Geology circles, a bolide is an extremely bright meteor, especially one that explodes in the atmosphere. It refers to a fireball about as bright as the full moon, and it is generally considered a synonym for a fireball.
A superbolide is a bolide that reaches an apparent magnitude of −17 or brighter, which is roughly 100 times brighter than the full moon.
The Chelyabinsk superbolide was not only bright but had a loud concussi...
