Meteor a once-in-a-century display

On Friday February 16th, a meteor exploded twelve miles above Earth's surface "creating a powerful shock"and a "a once-in-a-century occurrence." The meteor, fifty feet in diameter with a weight of 287 million pounds, exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia and was recorded as the largest meteor since 1908 when one exploded over Siberia. This meteor's result from the explosions "was equivalent to detonating about 300 kilotons of TNT — making it roughly 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima," according to NASA scientists. Around 1,200 people were injured from broken windows and wall collapses. Events like this are extremely uncommon: "they occur every 50 to 100 years. But because so much of the Earth is ocean, only about once a century does something comparable occur over an inhabited area." Although devastating to Russia's land and people, the meteor was an extravagant sight and occurrence due to its  rarity. 

Carolyn Johnson, author of the article, mostly uses logos to clear up any misleading conjectures about the meteor and to inform the public. Johnson also includes a video of the meteor skyrocketing across the sky to visually depict the scene in Russia. 


Source: http://bostonglobe.com/news/science/2013/02/15/meteor-shower-russia-unrelated-large-asteroid-predicted-make-close-pass/78lSppXTMJTLMfuHo1dIBM/story.html