This network has detected 26 multi-kiloton explosions since 2001, all of which are due to asteroid impacts

This Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, three former NASA astronauts will present new evidence that our planet has experienced many more large-scale asteroid impacts over the past decade than previously thought… three to ten times more, in fact. A new visualization of data from a nuclear weapons warning network, to be unveiled by B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu during the evening event at Seattle's Museum of Flight, shows that "the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck  

Since 2001, 26 atomic-bomb-scale explosions have occurred in remote locations around the world, far from populated areas, made evident by a nuclear weapons test warning network. In a recent press release B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu states:

"This network has detected 26 multi-kiloton explosions since 2001, all of which are due to asteroid impacts. It shows that asteroid impacts are NOT rare—but actually 3-10 times more common than we previously thought. The fact that none of these asteroid impacts shown in the video was detected in advance is proof that the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a 'city-killer' sized asteroid is blind luck. The goal of the B612 Sentinel mission is to find and track asteroids decades before they hit Earth, allowing us to easily deflect them


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-astronauts-reveal-sobering-asteroid-impacts.html#jCp

Fascinating. Imagine that. Every year 1 or 2 MULTI KILOTON atomic explosions occur from asteroid impacts. Probably lots more smaller ones we don't know about. But multi kiloton, wow.....

We sure are lucky  

Here's a trivia question for you,  Chrissy.

Any asteroid under a certain size will burn up in the atmosphere before it
reaches the ground.  What size (diameter) do you think an asteroid has to be before it's large enough to survive the atmosphere and impact the surface of the Earth?

Bob wrote:Here's a trivia question for you,  Chrissy.

Any asteroid under a certain size will burn up in the atmosphere before it
reaches the ground.  What size (diameter) do you think an asteroid has to be before it's large enough to survive the atmosphere and impact the surface of the Earth?

according to this 65 feet.

astronomers are now shifting their focus from the largest impacts – like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago – to the smaller, but still dangerous space rocks. For example, the rock that detonated in the air above Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. That object was probably only between 20-100 metres (65-325 feet) across.

And yet, it leveled the forest for thousands of square kilometres and would have caused immense destruction if it had hit a populated area


Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/12522/when-do-asteroids-turn-dangerous/#ixzz2zMNMYajh