Meteorite Explodes Over Russia

[Rhapsody]

Exactly as the title says. A meteorite exploded over Russia this morning, with some freaky light shows and a sonic boom loud enough to shatter windows. Between one and four hundred people were injured, mostly as a result of falling glass from shattered windows. There are no confirmed deaths. There doesn't seem to be a connection to DA14, slated to pass Earth on its roughly twice-yearly visit later today.

The videos of the Russian meteorite are amazing and surreal.

http://io9.com/5984483/a-meteor-just-exploded-over-russia

[Chris Brady]

Wow.  Hopefully there are no deaths...

[gaggedLouise]

I saw in a paper online that if the collision had happened just 100 seconds later, the rock would have hit around here - we're on just about exactly the same parallel as Chelyabinsk and it seems the meteorite was going straight westwards (with another twenty-five seconds or something it would have struck near Leeds...). 

[Monfang]

Wow.  Hopefully there are no deaths...

Just saw a report on it. Apparently a few hundred deaths from what I remember, but no one died. A lot more soiled pants though.

I saw in a paper online that if the collision had happened just 100 seconds later, the rock would have hit around here - we're on just about exactly the same parallel as Chelyabinsk and it seems the meteorite was going straight westwards (with another fifteen seconds or something it would have struck near Leeds...). 

I always amazes me about how much difference seconds can make in everything.

[Observing Trifles]

The videos are enough to make jaws drop. Can't imagine what it must've been like to actually be there...

[Brittany]

I was looking for this thread to see if anyone had any news.  My streaming video is rubbish.

I heard the Russian's actually shot it down with rockets, but that it has been unconfirmed?  Really hope they are all OK.

[Monfang]

I was looking for this thread to see if anyone had any news.  My streaming video is rubbish.

I heard the Russian's actually shot it down with rockets, but that it has been unconfirmed?  Really hope they are all OK.

This might help ya, Brittany: http://youtu.be/aAHFew_ptjY

From the cloud trails, I see no evidence of a rocket impacting the meteor before it exploded.

[gaggedLouise]

Russia seems to have a knack for this kind of thing. Everybody knows about the Tunguska blast in northern Siberia a hundred years ago , but in 1947 another one (definitely smaller than the one that hit this morning) struck in the mountains near Vladivostok. That one went off with about the force of the Hiroshima bomb...

[TaintedAndDelish]

Gee, I wonder if this is related to global warming.    *cackle*

Anyway... I thought those videos really awesome. I wonder how massive this meteor was believed to be.

[gaggedLouise]

I just saw an estimate of the force of this, placing the yield at around 300 kiloton. That's roughly nineteen Hiroshima bombs - until they have found some of the debris of the actual rock, and the place where the impact happened, it's simply a crude guess though. It looks like it went up in air and did not strike the ground in anything like one piece

- I would guess this Ural mountains meteorite could have been maybe five to ten meters across before it finally broke up and exploded, but that's a totally unscientific guess, just working from scientists' reported estimates of similar larger and smaller objects that have hit pay dirt.

For comparison, the Barringer Crater in Arizona, 1.200 meters wide, is supposed to have been shaped by a 50 meter-wide rock, a hit equal to ten megatons of TNT. The Tunguska event would have been two or three times as powerful but there was no real crater there, the thing exploded in the atmosphere, close to the surface of the earth.

[Monfang]

I just saw an estimate of the force of this, placing the yield at around 300 kiloton. That's roughly nineteen Hiroshima bombs - until they have found some of the debris of the actual rock, and the place where the impact happened, it's simply a crude guess though.

For comparison, the Barringer Crater in Arizona, 1.200 meters wide, is supposed to have been shaped by a 50 meter-wide rock, a hit equal to ten megatons of TNT. The Tunguska event would have been two or three times as powerful but there was no real crater there, the thing exploded in the atmosphere, close to the surface of the earth.

The crater like this one: http://rt.com/news/russia-meteor-meteorite-asteroid-chelyabinsk-291/

[Skynet]

Over 1,000 people got injured, I don't know how many hospitalized.  I really hope that they're all OK...

[Chris Brady]

Me too, Sky.

[Oniya]

Russia seems to have a knack for this kind of thing. Everybody knows about the Tunguska blast in northern Siberia a hundred years ago , but in 1947 another one (definitely smaller than the one that hit this morning) struck in the mountains near Vladivostok. That one went off with about the force of the Hiroshima bomb...

When you cover eight time-zones, there's a lot of target to be hit. 

[Kuje]

Evidently a second one skimmed over San Fran this evening. Two in one day, kinda freaky.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Fireball-Streaks-Across-Bay-Area-Sky-191503601.html

[Tito]

I saw in a paper online that if the collision had happened just 100 seconds later, the rock would have hit around here - we're on just about exactly the same parallel as Chelyabinsk and it seems the meteorite was going straight westwards (with another twenty-five seconds or something it would have struck near Leeds...). 

While I am certainly sorry that people got injured I am also rather jealous, you could go multiple life times without seeing an event like that. If it had hit near Leeds I would be straight in a car listening to the twittersphere for rumours of impact sites!

I expect in the ominous days we may see a number of Russian "Meteorite Fragments" appear on eBay. I certainly would love to own something like that. I assume. There has been no detected radiation so I guess the only possible risk would be biological contaminants.

Hopefully our near miss and the Russian meteorite along side the one seen in San Fransisco might even be incentive enough for governments to pump some more cash towards space programs.

[Oniya]

Evidently a second one skimmed over San Fran this evening. Two in one day, kinda freaky.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Fireball-Streaks-Across-Bay-Area-Sky-191503601.html

Many meteor showers are the result of the Earth passing through the orbits of comets.  I don't know if that's where these two originated, but with the close timing, I wouldn't be surprised.  They also might have both been fragments from another collision (like in the asteroid belt) that got hauled into the right gravitational track.  Anyone know where Mars is relative to us right now?

[Monfang]

One more time just to prove that things tend to come in threes.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/16/meteors-asteroids-now-this-fireball-seen-streaking-across-the-san-francisco-sky/