Only scifi readers will catch the meme in the post title. Maybe this would be better:
Kaboom? There was one! Said to have comparable explosive power to the Hiroshima bomb.
As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.
Peter Bruvold witnessed the meteorite streaking across the night sky.
The map shows the meteorite’s direction of fall (the arrow) and the possible impact area over Troms and Finnmark counties.
At around 2:05 a.m. on Wednesday, residents of the northern part of Troms and the western areas of Finnmark could clearly see a ball of fire taking several seconds to travel across the sky.
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
“This is simply exceptional. I cannot imagine that we have had such a powerful meteorite impact in Norway in modern times. If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb. Of course the meteorite is not radioactive, but in explosive force we may be able to compare it to the (atomic) bomb,” Røed Ødegaard said.
The astronomer believes the meteorite was a giant rock and probably the largest known to have struck Norway.
“The record was the Alta meteorite that landed in 1904. That one was 90 kilos (198 lbs) but we think the meteorite that landed Wednesday was considerably larger,” Røed Ødegaard said, and urged members of the public who saw the object or may have found remnants to contact the Institute of Astrophysics.
Yeh… “exceptional” is the word I’d use. Nah. I’ll stick with the Chicken Little quote.
h.t. to a Chaos Manor Musings reader… and a tip o’ the tam to Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven for the “Lucifer’s Hammer” meme.
Practicing “When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!” at TMH’s Bacon Bits.