HOW BRIGHT IS THE EXPLOSION OF A ONE-YARD DIAMETER METEOR?

  From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

   DAY  USA  WORLD    Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22      1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12      1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9      1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21      1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25       2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14       4142    15512          1151        189      712

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar     2        1989     9490        1726       110      194

April   6         906     11787         4211       631       37

May    4         853     13667        3025     3786      59 

June   1         287    10637         2346      3205      95

 July   7          251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532     423 

Sept  22       2228     9326          839        279      124

        29         2190      8859         643        309      108

Oct    6         2102       8255         543        315       59

        19          2005      7528         401       160        80 

        27          1594      8671          433        734       62 

Nov   3          1436      7830         186        458        23

        24          1594      8270         176        396        22 

Dec    1          1633      8475         266        477        28

          8          1324      7894         231        159         36

        17          1653      7359         126        289         35 

        22          1634      7686         137        434         99

        23          1149       6942        100        374         75

        29          1777       7393         147        268         81

        30         1354       6758         154        220       126 

Jan    5          1802       7551          133        325       110   

         6           2143       7161           171        302        45 

         7           2025      6729          148        285      140

Summary:  I generally avoid showing this table on a Saturday, but the increasing new cases for the U.S. is a bit alarming.

• New cases for the USA are creeping up, reaching 848,346 yesterday.
• However, the World Bank says the U.S. new cases yesterday were just above 2 million.  
• They must somehow include asymptomatic individuals.
• Projects continuing increases until January 25 to 2.8 million new cases.
• Both sources reasonably agree on total deaths:
• Worldometer  858,346
• World Bank  836,656
• They also had somewhat similar new deaths yesterday:
• Worldometer  2025
• World Bank  1700
• If Omicron is dominant, on February 13, World Bank predicts:
• 2895 new deaths
• but as low as 984 new deaths would be possible with 80% mask-wearing, which, of course, won't happen
• The World Bank shows that 64% of Americans have been fully vaccinated (but not necessarily boosted), with 75% having at least one dose.  Worldometer does not include vaccinations.
• World Bank also tracks hospitalizations:
• 22January21 (a time frame when new deaths reached the highest)
• all beds  49,204
• ICU beds  11,152
• 11September21
• all beds  37,281
• ICU beds  9804
• 7January22
• all beds  37,419
• ICU beds  7,992
• Projected for 14February22
• all beds   52,815
• ICU beds  13,727
• To summarize, the U.S. today was yesterday below the record maximums of 22January21, a year ago.
• However, the World Bank predicts the requirements of all and ICU beds on 14February22 will exceed the needs of 22January21.
• About mask-wearing in the U.S., the observed percentage from World Bank,was 75-77% a year ago, dropping to 23% during the summer of 2021, and is now at 38%.

To summarize the above, keeping in mind that 98-99% of all COVID-19 deaths today are the unvaccinated, for the U.S.:

• New cases will increase until around January 25.
• Hospitalizations will continue to increase until mid-February.
• New deaths will go up from the 2025 to nearly 3000 in mid-February, but will not reach the all-time high established a year ago.
• If you're still unvaccinated, you are the likely target of the Omicron variant to be hospitalized or killed by COVID-19.
• For those fully vaccinated and boosted, you are largely protected from the Omicron variant.  However, if you're so unlucky as to get infected, the odds are very high that the worse you will suffer will be from mild flu symptoms, and more likely that of a cold.  
• As you will want to take the Pfizer and Moderna series of inoculations, which require at least two months to fully protect you, is it too late for the unvaxxed to now do so?  Yes, but if you start soon, and somehow escape getting infected, you will by March be able to attend any indoor event and travel.

Dynamite was invented by Alfred Nobel in 1967.  He was a Swedish chemist who acquired 355 worldwide patents and passed away in 1896.  He left his fortune to what became the Nobel Prize, possibly because he had to do something about being called a merchant of death.

Nitroglycerine was first made in 1847 by Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero.  The sensation was that it was a lot more powerful than gunpowder...but was unstable.  Nobel's invention, dynamite, was a way of stabilizing nitroglycerin to make it practical for blasting rocks or for tunneling.  The key was his stay in Germany and finding a diatomaceous earth called Kieselguhr, which with the NG formed a paste that could be shaped and triggered.  Dynamite is this nitroglycerine paste with a detonator.  While dynamite is relatively safe, accidents do happen, and his brother Emil was killed in a family factory when there was an explosion.

Incidentally, this same nitroglycerin is a valuable heart medication for angina.  Also too, nitroglycerin gel with a brand name of Zanifil, goes inside a latex condom to stimulate blood flow.  Safer sex with no fear of an explosion.  It is available in parts of Europe, but not the USA.  Adding on the Nobel Prize, can you find a more successful compound for humanity than nitroglycerin?

TNT is 2,4,6,-trinitrotoluene and was invented by German chemist Julius Wilbrand.  Originally, it was used as a yellow dye.  It took another 28 years for another German chemist, Carl Hussermann, to become the true merchant of death.  While not quite as powerful as dynamite, it is more stable.  TNT combined with ammonium nitrate, can be poured into a shell casing, so is more valuable for military purposes.   This advantage is why Germany might have became so bellicose.  In any case, TNT became the standard comparative convention of bombs and asteroid impacts.

All that background to lead me to ask you, how bright is the explosion of a one-yard diameter meteor?  

• On New Year's Day, at 11:30 AM a meteor exploded in the atmosphere near Pittsburg.  It was surmised to be a half ton rock about a yard in diameter.  The explosion was calculated to be the equivalent of 30 tons of TNT.

• 
  If this happened at night, this blast would have been 100 times the brightness of a full moon.     So that is the answer.
• What is equivalent to 3o tons of TNT?
• Two pounds of TNT can destroy an automobile.
• 2.4 to 240 tons of TNT is the energy released by each lightning bolt.
• 500 tons of TNT is the estimate of the Beirut explosion of 2020.

• 
  15,000 tons of TNT is about Fat Man, the atomic bomb that fell on Hiroshima.
• 5,000,000 tons of TNT was the energy released by the Soviet Union's Tsar Bomba, a hydrogen bomb.
• 1,460,000,000 tons of TNT represent the global nuclear arsenal.
• 104,000,000,000 tons of TNT = the total solar irradiance the energy striking the Earth per hour.
• 
  875,000,000,000 tons of TNT = yield of the last eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.  That was 174,000 years ago.
• 2,390,000,000,000 (2.39 x 10 to the 12th power) tons of TNT = energy of that asteroid striking our planet 66 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs.

• 
  5.972 x 10 to the 15th power = the explosive energy of TNT the size of Planet Earth, which is a little less than the total solar output of our Sun/day.
• 1.3 x 10 to the 32nd power =  merger of two black holes.

We had a fabulous meal last night of Maine Lobster and Dungeness Crab from Tamashiro Market, sauce of melted butter and cocktail sauce, plus corn on the cob, with a bottle of Goldschmidt Chardonnay:

I end with the danger and beauty of nature:

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