Thursday, August 18, 2011

Question about asteroids?

A 1.6 km wide asteroid should be bright enough to see in the night-time sky as it approaches. However, the likely impact speed is around 20 km/s so unless the collision angle is very shallow, it will strike pretty much the instant you see an atmospheric fireball. Smaller objects have been observed to create smoke or fire trails over paths of several hundred kilometers.

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