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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 5185428" data-attributes="member: 19675">FWIW, there was a discussion of the meteor thing on NatGeo tonight...Unfortunately, the scientists in the show tended to be of the opinion that the loosely aggregated meteors were the more serious problem.Despite the very correct analogy upthread about the ping-pong balls, the problem is that the particles in question are still fairly massive and are incredibly fast.  The consensus was that the myriad of particles would tend to airburst...generating an "atomic shotgun" effect.The heat, pressure waves and so forth, while potentially less than that generated by a cohesive meteor's strike, would be worse in that it would be harder to avoid.That is:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">- the damage would be spread out over a larger area.  Less overall damage than the cohesive meteor's strike, but still lethal enough.  Its akin the difference between a buried or surface nuke and an airburst.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">- it would be a harder meteor to deal with.  A solid one would react predictably with a nuclear strike and could be destroyed or deflected, whereas a non-cohesive one might simply spread out.</li> </ol></blockquote>