In case you haven’t heard, a meteorite came down in the Urals this morning (their time). According to the information I’ve seen, it massed about 10 tons and was traveling about 54,000 km/h. Roughly speaking, it would have had the equivalent energy of about 1 Megaton of TNT.
Again, according to reports, several 700 people were injured, mostly from flying glass and building damage.
Honestly, this is a pretty epic event. A tiny little meteor almost landed in a town. Considering the size of the Earth and the amount of towns, it’s pretty rare.
The thing is, there are lots and lots of reports coming out about this. We, as consumers of information, must be careful, especially when (as I am) we forward the information in a blog or article. A major event like this can be good for blog hits, especially if people think that they have a scoop or something.
For example, at least one site is saying that this is the crater from today’s meteor.
It’s not. This is another very interesting thing about the Earth. It was a gas mine in Turkmenistan that collapsed. Because the natural gas was leaking, the engineers and geologists decided to burn the gas. It’s been burning ever since. Oh, the fire was started in 1971. Nothing to do with a meteor.
Oh… and this is NOT an alien invasion. There are no pods with transformers in them. Sorry.
Anyway, when you are consuming information, any information. Consider the source. How well do you know the writers? Do the sources look good? Is it sensationalized or factual?
Be a skeptical consumer of information. The world is a fascinating place… but people try to make it more than it is, generally in the name of a scoop or a few bucks.
As far as my information, I generally look to Phil Plait for stuff like this. I know he’s not going to go the sensationalist route. There are some great videos on his report too.
