Source: http://www.latimes.com/science/scienceno...

Is asteroid impact a real threat to humanity? Watch this video and decide for yourself.

What you see above is a visualization of 26 powerful explosions in the Earth's atmosphere that have occurred since the year 2000 -- each the result of a space rock slamming into our planet.

The video was put together by the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit that hopes to send a privately funded infrared telescope into space by 2018 to map the solar system, locating as many potentially dangerous asteroids as possible. 

The asteroid impacts included in the video above released anywhere from 1 kiloton to 600 kilotons of energy. (The bomb that flattened Hiroshima in 1945 released 15 kilotons of energy).

The asteroid explosions were recorded by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, which has an array of infrasonic microphones scattered throughout the world. The microphones are used to monitor man-made nuclear explosions, but they also pick up nature-made asteroid explosions as well.