Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:28:04 -0400
From: <lees103 at verizon.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Tunguska event centennial today
To: <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

    Ron stated "something more or less like that happens on Earth with a
frequency of about once per hundred years or so, on average."  Declassified
Department of Defense satellite data shows that Earth takes a one megaton
meteor strike in the upper atmosphere on the average of once every eight
months.  On 10 August 1972, a meteor the size of an aircraft carrier hit the
atmosphere over the Grand Teton range in Montana but glanced off and
returned to space.  The event was recorded on videocorder.
    Asteroids have approached within 1 million kilometers of Earth in 1989,
1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 (two of them), and 1996.
    The Winslow, Arizona meteor impact was observed by American Indians and
the event preserved in oral histories.
----- Original Message -----
From: <ronkean at juno.com>
To: <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 1:32 AM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Tunguska event centennial today

>
> -- "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>
>> Could it happen again today, perhaps over a major city?
>> Nobody knows.
>
> I do!  Yes, it could.  Very few things in nature are totally unique, and=
> =
>
> anything even close to that sort of event would be "it happening again".=
>
> *
> Speculation I have read is that something more or less like that
> happens on Earth with a frequency of about once per hundred years =
>
> or so, on average.  =
>
> Most of the Earth's surface is ocean or uninhabited land, and the
>  human race was far less numerous in centuries past, and that
>  would likely explain why no other event 'like that' is remembered as
> part of commonly acknowledged human history.  For example, I think that=
> the Winslow meteor crater in Arizona was made before humans had settled=
> in that part of the world.  But from now on, an event like
> that would almost certainly be noticed, if only because there are
> now satellites continuously monitoring the Earth's surface.
>
> Ron Kean