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A college bus driver in Tamil Nadu, India was killed by what is suspected to be a meteorite that landed nearby. Two gardeners and a student were injured. The bus driver was walking near the location of the impact. Windows of the bus were damaged. A bluish or black pockmarked object, suspected to be the meteorite, was recovered from the crater. The object left a small crater. It's possible the object could be man-made space debris.
The article states this would be the first recorded death from falling space rocks in nearly 200 years (1825, Oriang, Malwate, India). Interestingly, NASA states that "...no human in the past 1000 years is known to have been killed by a meteorite or by the effects of one impacting."
That's good to know, because if meteorites were literally raining down death from above life would get pretty scary here.
Indeed. It's a very rare accident. Most of the Earth's surface is covered by water and unpopulated land areas which is where most are likely to land. Still, it's possible a shower of meteoroids could "rain" down or perhaps fragments of a comet that had broken into pieces could hit the Earth. The problem is that most are too small to detect. Even so, death, damage and injuries would most likely be minimal, if any at all. Most would likely strike unpopulated areas.
The ones to be more concerned about are the bigger ones, asteroids, that could potentially cause more serious damage. One in March 5 is estimated to be about 100' in diameter (larger than the 65' one that exploded over Russia) and is expected to pass as close as 11,000 miles from the Earth to as much as 9 million miles. It's not expected to hit the Earth. 'Bigger Than Chelyabinsk' Asteroid To Skim By Earth | Orbit Animation
NASA is saying that it's unlikely the Indian bus driver was killed by a meteorite. They don't think the object is a meteorite. "After reviewing photographic evidence, the US space agency told AFP that they did not believe the object was a meteorite."
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
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Interestingly enough - the chance of being killed by an Asteroid is 1 in about 74 million. While the odds of winning the mega millions lottery is 176 million to one.
So you have roughly 2 1/2 times the risk of being killed by a meterorite or asteroid than you do of winning the lottery. LOL
I generally place my arms over my head to prevent getting bonked by things falling out of the sky
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