In Ryan North and Carlos Gómez‘s Fantastic Four #18, our heroes visit the impact site of what they believe is a Tunguska-sized “asteroid” (we can forgive the incorrect nomenclature; they really meant meteorite). Local law enforcement are incredulous that there could be “a rock big enough to do this damage, and nobody saw it coming?” Johnny Storm confirms that the object was not spotted by astronomers, leading Reed Richards to a strange conclusion — the meteor must have been invisible.
But size isn’t the only determining factor in our ability to see these objects as they move around our planet and the solar system; you also have to consider an object’s location relative to the Sun, the angle of approach, and the speed with which it’s moving. A meteor estimated to be 65 feet in width exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 with absolutely no warning. In July of 2019, a 328-foot asteroid surprised astronomers just days before it passed between the Earth and the Moon. The relatively slow motion of this object made it difficult to detect via current methods.
The very first time a meteoroid was discovered before it hit Earth was in October of 2008. The 10-foot diameter asteroid’s impact was predicted within 1 km of its ultimate location, and within 1.5 seconds of when it struck. Imaging resources such as Pan-STARRS and ATLAS track thousands of near-Earth objects (NEOs), but they can’t watch the entire sky. The European Space Agency’s NEOMIR mission, set to launch in 2030, will look for Chelyabinsk-sized meteoroids in the area between the Earth and the Sun, and should reveal many more ”invisible asteroids.”
Marvel Comics
The Tunguska event that Reed mentions occurred on June 30, 1908, in a remote area of Siberia, so you can be sure that definitely nobody saw that one coming. Similar to the Cheylabinsk event, the Tunguska object exploded about 6 miles above the ground, spurring all kinds of myths surrounding its origin, including ideas about black holes, antimatter, Nikola Tesla’s technology, or even aliens.
The Tunguska object is now estimated to have been about 130 feet in diameter with an approximate weight of 220 million pounds. The event was seen as far away as Ireland and registered on early seismic equipment.While this sounds like a very large object, it also falls within the range of the most dangerously difficult-to-see sized-objects (65-450 feet).
Reed also explains that the dinosaurs never saw the killer asteroid that hastened their extinction. While we can’t know for sure what the animals that lived on Earth then could have seen, there are certain things we can calculate. The short answer is that the dinosaurs on the correct side of the planet, if they looked up during the three days before the Chicxulub impact, would have seen the estimated 6.2-mile-wide space rock coming toward the Earth as a glowing orb in the sky. Click here for the long answer, with calculations.
Looks like Carlos Gómez used real photos of the Tunguska impact site for reference!
Since the beginning of our solar system, comets, asteroids, and meteoroids have been colliding with each other and with the planets that orbit the Sun. They’ve shaped the landscape, determined what species would live and die, and terrified humans with their unpredictable behavior and sometimes totally invisible existence. Prior to the 18th century, people didn’t even believe that rocks could simply fall from the sky. Early events were seen as omens, objects sent by supernatural entities, and were often worshiped or used in spiritual rituals.
In our modern world, we’re able to track large NEOs with some level of precision, and have even been able to predict the location of impact with Earth. But we can’t see all of them, and that can engage our imaginations.
AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.
You must be logged in to post a comment.