Andromeda Strain?
Does the dust contain some kind of cosmic killer bacteria?
Not only did the Chelyabinsk bolide explosion send shock waves around the world. It also sent a plume of dust, and for the first time, such a plume has been observed by space-borne instruments. The data, captured by the Suomi NPP satellite's Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) of instruments, gave the agency a rare chance …
Since Chelyabinsk, there have been almost a dozen near earth asteroids detected, some known and expected and one large one that gave us only a week's warning recently. Can you spell w-a-k-e u-p c-a-l-l? The nations of this planet should be creating treaties of technological cooperation. This trumps "global warming/climate change" (take your pick) in spades. Not a big deal? Google "Tunguska" and "Younger Dryas Firestone". The only defense we currently have is our nuclear ICBM arsenals. You can bet the PR storm accompanying that fact has pacifist hysteria written all over it.
The rubble pile hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis. I've yet to see a photograph of an asteroid that is a rubble pile. But that could be sorted out quickly via high resolution radar so that we don't nuke a "rubble pile", but let it pepper the atmosphere in a dispersed manner; there's an energy bleed off vs. surface area formula at play there. The key being "dispersed manner". We'd need to render any rock bigger than a school bus into dispersed rubble, and this is doable. The danger from radiation measured against the loss of a city or region, needs to be computed minus the knee jerk radiation aversion reflex. If it's a metal asteroid, good luck children. Pray that there is enough charge differential with the Earth that it's discharge would ablate a good percentage of its mass. Take another look at the Arizona meteor crater. Put the city of your choice at its center.