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Could A Meteor Hit the Tennessee Valley?

331 views · Published 18 February 2013 · 2:27 · Indexed 5 October 2026

Channel: WTVC NewsChannel 9 · 2013 · News & Politics

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Early Friday morning, a huge meteor hit Russia. The resulting sonic boom and broken glass injured more than a thousand people.Friday afternoon, an unrelated asteroid made an extremely close fly-by to earth.We wanted to know what the chances are that a meteor could ever strike the Tennessee Valley.The ball of fire in the Russian sky was caught by dozens of cameras.An amazing sight, until it breaks the sound barrier, causing a huge sonic boom which shattered glass and hurt hundreds.Imagine you're driving down the highway and you see a bright flash then a ball of fire fly across the sky.Me not being in astronomy, and being an average joe, it was breath taking and kind of scary, said Dustin Mulkey, who lives in Chattanooga.Tim Ross, the Assistant Professor in Physics and Astronomy at Chattanooga State, says it could happen here. This is the biggest one in my lifetime I've seen to hit the earth. But again, it's because it was caught on video. They hit the earth all the time and we don't catch them on video, said Ross.He says most of the time, meteorites land in bodies of water or in unpopulated areas. A meteor of this size streaking through a big city is rare and the effects are dangerous. The meteor broke the sound barrier, causing a sonic boom. It set off car alarms and shattered windows in buildings.Many escaped serious injury but hundreds of others in the country weren't so lucky. Ross compares the sonic boom to hurricane-force winds moving at a couple hundred miles per hour and hitting you all at once. When I speak to you, you hear my air molecules hit these molecules and they bounce and hit your ears. When you go faster than the speed of sound, you compress all that air into a very tight area called a sonic boom. If it were to hit you, it would knock you backwards, said Ross.Ross also says today's meteor in Russia is not connected to the asteroid that came close to hitting the Earth this afternoon. It was just an extremely rare cosmic coincidence.By Natalie Jenereski

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