Meteor Crater About 50,000 years ago, a meteor crashed into the earth near present-day Flagstaff, Arizona. Recent (2005) measurements estimate that this meteor had a mass of about 1.4 X 108 kg (around 150,000 tons) and hit the ground at 12 km/s.
(a) How much kinetic energy did this meteor deliver to the ground?
(b) How does this energy compare to the energy released by a 1.0 megaton nuclear bomb? (A megaton bomb releases the same energy as a nll1lion tons of TNT, and 1.0 ton of TNT releases 4.184 X 109 J of energy.)