The mass of a meteor with a radius of 1 km is about 9 x 1012 kg.The mass of a meteor also is proportional to the cube of itsradius. Suppose a meteor with a radius of 8.8 km is moving at 1.7 x104 m/s when it collides inelastically with the Earth. The Earthhas a mass of 5.97 x 1024 kg and assume the Earth is stationary.The kinetic energy lost by the asteroid in this collision will betransferred to non-conservative work in heating the atmosphere andphysically destroying the place where it lands. The Tsar Bomb, thelargest atomic bomb ever tested, released 2.1 x 1017 J of energy.(Which, by the way, is 1000's of times more energy compared to theatomic bombs dropped in World War II.) How many MILLIONS ofequivalent Tsar Bombs is the kinetic energy lost of thismeteor?
