Dangerous meteors FIVE TIMES more likely to hit Earth than first thought, new studies reveal

February's meteor strike in Russia has caused scientists to re-evaluate the potential danger from space rocks

View gallery

• "
• "
• "
• "
• "
• "
• "

A meteor streaked across the sky of Russia

View gallery

 

The threat of dangerous meteors crashing into Earth is FIVE TIMES more likely than previously thought, according to new studies.

A 19m-wide meteor burst over Chelyabinsk in Russia last February with the force equivalent to 600,000 TONS of TNT and caused severe injuries to more than 1,600 people below.

It was the largest object to hit the Earth since the Tunguska event of 1908, when an exploding comet or asteroid destroyed 2,000 square kilometers of Siberian forest.

But new studies in the journals Nature and Science suggest meteors even bigger than that seen at Chelyabinsk are four or five times more likely to hit the planet than scientists had previously thought.

Before the Russian meteor United States space agency NASA didn't even look for  space rocks bigger than 30m wide believing there was little danger arising from meteors below that size.

But in light of the damage caused at Chelyabinsk that has now changed, with scientists believing that instead of a meteor strike of that magnitude being a one-in-150-years event it is in fact much more likely.

One of the studies suggested such an airblast, as they are known, could instead come around every 30 years or so.

Purdue University astronomer Jay Melosh explained: "The biggest hazard from asteroids right now is the city-busting airbursts, not the civilisation-busting impacts from one-kilometre-diameter objects that has so far been the target of most astronomical surveys."