New research papers revealed that massive meteorites are frequently passing Earth every 30 or 40 years. This is so much different because scientists believed that it only happens every 150 years.

Based on past calculations of scientists, huge meteors in the Earth’s atmosphere occurs every 150 years. However, after researchers studied the massive meteor in Chelyabinsk, Russia, they found that these massive meteorites actually passes the planet more frequently. Their calculation showed it may probably be around every 30 or 40 years.

The meteorite that struck Russia is by far the most enormous celestial object ever recorded and the best one so far in astronomic history. The 12,000 metric ton meteorite which was travelling at 42,600 miles per hour passed through in an area wherein more than 1 million people reside in.

The meteorite which looked like an enormous ball of fire flashed a blinding light at dawn of February 15 at Chelyabinsk city. The shockwaves caused 44 percent of the buildings in the city to break windows leaving 1,619 injured residents. One of the fragments from the meteor created a huge hole in the ice which measures around 25 feet in diameter and 27 inches deep, according to a paper published in Science.

Researchers say that the airburst from the meteor’s shockwave was estimated to be around 500 kilotons of TNT, an enormous comparison with Hiroshima’s atomic explosion which was only 13 TNT kilotons.
There were more than 400 sources of video and security cameras in the area which helped the scientists perform a detailed investigation.

Researchers used the video footages to find out how the meteorite happened to pass through Earth, including the details of its orbit and trajectory towards our planet.

One of the co-authors in the paper published in Nature, Prof. Peter Brown from Canada’s University of Western Ontario, said that they investigated on previous records of meteors hitting the Earth’s atmosphere during the past 40 years by using telescopic analysis. To their surprise, they discovered that there are more meteor events that happened.

According to Bill Cooke, the head of NASA’s office which monitors meteors that could possibly jeopardize any spacecraft, this more frequent occurrences of meteorites passing the Earth is not a cause of alarm since it still accounts for very minimal cases of impacts.