The amount of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico is at least 10 times the size of official estimates, according to an exclusive NPR analysis.

Steven Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, analyzed videotape of the seafloor gusher using a technique called particle image velocimetry. The method is accurate to a degree of plus or minus 20 percent.

Given that uncertainty, the amount of material spewing from the pipe could range from 56,000 barrels to 84,000 barrels a day. It is important to note that it's not all oil. The short video BP released starts out with a shot of methane, but at the end it seems to be mostly oil.

Eugene Chiang, a professor of astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley, also got a similar answer, using just pencil and paper.

And though his calculation is less precise than Wereley's, it is in the same ballpark.

"I would peg it at around 20,000 to 100,000 barrels per day," he said.

Chiang called the current estimate of 5,000 barrels a day "almost certainly incorrect."

Given this flow rate, it seems this is a spill of unprecedented proportions in U.S. waters.

"It would just take a few days, at most a week, for it to exceed the Exxon Valdez's record," Chiang said.

Find out more

_______________________________________________________________________

 Watch our first viral video!

 _________________________________________________

Australia feared an environmental crisis from a huge ship that struck the Great Barrier Reef nine days ago.

AFP/Queensland Government/File – The Chinese coal carrier Shen Neng 1 after the vessel ran aground near Australia's Great Barrier …

The reef, which is visible from space and counted as one of the world's foremost ecological treasures, has already come under pressure from rising sea temperatures and pollution. Now, this!..

Read more.

We played the guitar, jumped on the trampoline, cooked, ate and watched our neigbors turned all their lights on before left their home for the evening.

  Our neighbors!