"Meteorite Streaks Across Russian Urals, Leaves At Leas

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Apple_in_my_Eye
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15 Feb 2013, 6:22 am

...Injured (video at link)"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/1 ... 91904.html

[youtube]http://youtu.be/7c-0iwBEswE[/youtube]

Quote:
MOSCOW — The Russian Academy of Sciences is estimating the meteor that streaked into the skies over the Ural Mountains and caused shock waves that injured more than 400 people weighed about 10 tons (11 tons avoirdupois).

The academy said in a statement hours after the Friday morning fall that the meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered about 30-50 kilometers (18-32 miles) above ground.

The fall caused explosions that broke glass over a wide area. The Emergency Ministry says more than 500 people sought treatment after the blasts and that 34 of them were hospitalized.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and injuring more than 400 people, many of them hurt by broken glass. At least three people were reported hospitalized in serious condition.

"There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometers (930 miles) east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected region.

"We saw a big burst of light then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud thundering sound," he told The Associated Press by telephone.

Another Chelyabinsk resident, Valya Kazakov, said some elderly women in his neighborhood started crying out that the world was ending.

Some meteorites – fragments of the meteor – fell in a reservoir outside the town of Cherbakul, the regional governor's office said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. It was not immediately clear if any people were struck by fragments.

Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are traveling much faster than the speed of sound. Injuries on the scale reported Friday, however, are extraordinarily rare.

Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said more than 400 people had sought medical treatment after the blasts, including three in serious condition. Many of the injuries were from glass broken by the explosions.

Kolesnikov also said about 600 square meters (6000 square feet) of a roof at a zinc factory had collapsed. There was no immediate clarification of whether the collapse was caused by meteorites or by a shock wave from one of the explosions.

Reports conflicted on what exactly happened in the clear skies. A spokeswoman for the Emergency Ministry, Irina Rossius, told The Associated Press that there was a meteor shower, but another ministry spokeswoman, Elena Smirnikh, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying it was a single meteor.

Amateur video broadcast on Russian television showed an object speeding across the sky about 9:20 a.m. local time (0320 GMT), leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash.

Donald Yeomans, manager of U.S. Near Earth Object Program in California, said he thought the event was probably "an exploding fireball event."

"If the reports of ground damage can be verified, it might suggest an object whose original size was several meters in extent before entering the atmosphere, fragmenting and exploding due to the unequal pressure on the leading side vs. the trailing side (it pancaked and exploded)," Yeoman said in an email to The Associated Press.

"It is far too early to provide estimates of the energy released or provide a reliable estimate of the original size," Yeomans added.

Russian news reports noted that the meteor hit less than a day before the asteroid 2012 DA14 is to make the closest recorded pass of an asteroid -- about 17,150 miles (28,000 kilometers).

But the European Space Agency, in a post on its Twitter account, said its experts had determined there was no connection.

Small pieces of space debris – usually parts of comets or asteroids – that are on a collision course with the Earth are called meteoroids. When meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere they are called meteors. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the surface of the Earth they are called meteorites.

The dramatic events prompted an array of reactions from prominent Russian political figures. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, speaking at an economic forum in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, said the meteor could be a symbol for the forum, showing that "not only the economy is vulnerable, but the whole planet."

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist leader noted for vehement statements, said "It's not meteors falling, it's the test of a new weapon by the Americans," the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

---(equals)

Max Seddon in Moscow contributed to this story.



BlackSabre7
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15 Feb 2013, 8:18 am

Did anyone come across any info about the trajectory of this thing as compared to the trajectory of the one tomorrow? I am curious, because it is quite a coincidence.
I don't believe the crap about Americans testing a weapon, and I know the odds of it hitting a satellite are very slim. That too would be quite a coincidence.



naturalplastic
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15 Feb 2013, 9:03 am

Kinda of a tiny version of the famous Tunguska event (around 1910)- also in Russia- but instead of over the urals it was thousands to the miles to the east over the Siberian Taiga.

This was a meteor, or comet, coming down at a low angle (instead of straight down like a textbook meteor ought to) which exploded in the atmosphere and mimicked the kind of airburst a nine megaton H-bomb would make.

It flattened hundreds of square miles of big forest pine trees like they were match sticks. Kinda like the Mount St. Helens Eruption.

A couple witnesses miles away were knocked on their asses, but the thinly populated region had practically no causalties.
Over another location- it would have been a holocaust!

Russia is such a huge country that its a big target for cosmic debris. Thankfully both things happened in thinly populated areas.

But because the tungusta object didnt come straight down and gouge out a crater in the ground it had been a mystery until it was recently proven to be a meteor. There were wild speculations about the Tunguska event that included the suggestion that it was "an alien spacecaft with an overheated nuclear engine blowing up". But its now accepted that meteors coming in at an angle do in effect "collide with the atmosphere itsself" and explode before reaching the ground.

So apparently it happened again. And again- speculation about it among some is running wild-like that its an american weapon!



ruveyn
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15 Feb 2013, 10:39 am

naturalplastic wrote:

Russia is such a huge country that its a big target for cosmic debris. Thankfully both things happened in thinly populated areas.



Russia spans 6 time zones. That is about 90 degrees of longitude.

ruveyn



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15 Feb 2013, 12:46 pm

BlackSabre7 wrote:
Did anyone come across any info about the trajectory of this thing as compared to the trajectory of the one tomorrow? I am curious, because it is quite a coincidence.
I don't believe the crap about Americans testing a weapon, and I know the odds of it hitting a satellite are very slim. That too would be quite a coincidence.


http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/ ... flyby.html

as far as i know the russian meteor caught everyone by surprise so theres no detailed data online yet, but it appears it came rather from the opposite than from a similar direction as 2012da14. i really hope noone got seriously hurt with all the flying glas, but i cant help being very fascinated..

also i have been impatiently waiting for 2012da14 for almost a year. stupid f*ing clouds :/



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15 Feb 2013, 1:19 pm

All it takes is one :twisted:

http://youtu.be/-zvCUmeoHpw

http://science.discovery.com/video-topi ... impact.htm


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pezar
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15 Feb 2013, 1:52 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Kinda of a tiny version of the famous Tunguska event (around 1910)- also in Russia- but instead of over the urals it was thousands to the miles to the east over the Siberian Taiga.

This was a meteor, or comet, coming down at a low angle (instead of straight down like a textbook meteor ought to) which exploded in the atmosphere and mimicked the kind of airburst a nine megaton H-bomb would make.

It flattened hundreds of square miles of big forest pine trees like they were match sticks. Kinda like the Mount St. Helens Eruption.

A couple witnesses miles away were knocked on their asses, but the thinly populated region had practically no causalties.
Over another location- it would have been a holocaust!

Russia is such a huge country that its a big target for cosmic debris. Thankfully both things happened in thinly populated areas.

But because the tungusta object didnt come straight down and gouge out a crater in the ground it had been a mystery until it was recently proven to be a meteor. There were wild speculations about the Tunguska event that included the suggestion that it was "an alien spacecaft with an overheated nuclear engine blowing up". But its now accepted that meteors coming in at an angle do in effect "collide with the atmosphere itsself" and explode before reaching the ground.

So apparently it happened again. And again- speculation about it among some is running wild-like that its an american weapon!


I've read that the Tunguska event happened at the same north latitude as London. If the earth had been at a slightly different position, millions would have died in the worst disaster in recorded human history. It definitely would have changed the course of history, and in unforeseeable ways.



naturalplastic
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15 Feb 2013, 3:52 pm

Absolutely!

If it hit a few hours different it might well have wiped London off the map. Maybe not all eight million londeners wouldve died but millions would have. Britian would have entered world war one already mortally wounded as a country.



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15 Feb 2013, 9:08 pm

pezar wrote:
I've read that the Tunguska event happened at the same north latitude as London.
No so.
Tunguska = 60°
The Orkney Islands = 59°
Aberdeen = 57°
Moscow = 55°
Liverpool = 53°
London = 51°
Helsinki, Oslo, St. Petersburg or Stockholm would be a better match for more populated areas at 59/60°.

I found this interesting PDF file which overlays the Tunguska event on Manhattan and attempts to assess the losses. Well, it's not good...
www.rms.com/publications/1908_tunguska_event.pdf


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Last edited by Cornflake on 16 Feb 2013, 8:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

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16 Feb 2013, 12:37 am

This event is pretty neat from a historical perspective. Clearly human beings have witnessed other events like this over the past several millenniums. It's one of those things that's infrequent enough to become some kind of religious legend. This is absolutely the first time in history something like this has been recorded on video. None of the videos really does the brightness justice though. It was blindingly bright, much brighter than the sun itself. If you were standing outside you could feel the radiant heat of it on your skin. Just amazing.

We really lucked out with the 2012da14 asteroid/meteor. At some point we're going to get hit with something big enough to wipe a city off the map. It has happened before in human history and it will happen again. 8O



Last edited by marshall on 16 Feb 2013, 10:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

BlackSabre7
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16 Feb 2013, 5:03 am

Yeah, I heard the 2029 one will miss also, but the earth's gravity will alter its orbit enough so that it will be a threat on it's next pass, in 2036(?). But that got downgraded too. Pity. :twisted:



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16 Feb 2013, 6:57 am

By the way, don't forget that asteroids won't discriminate about where they hit. So statistically it is far more likely to hit ocean, followed by unpopulated areas - Antarctica/deserts/tundra/forest/farmland, and cities are the least likely. But yesterday's thing gave us a taste of what could happen if those odds paid out.
Of course, a tsunami or raging forest fire could still happen. Or maybe a huge 'burp' of methane from the ocean floor, or from the siberian traps, which could lead to an escalating greenhouse scenario.
Maybe a city would be a safer option? :lol:



naturalplastic
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16 Feb 2013, 7:11 am

If the asteroids don't getchya...the supervolcanoes do!

You just cant win for losing- can you !?


Lol!



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16 Feb 2013, 8:40 am

i am going to sound like a quack but i saw 2 very large "falling stars" last year. the first one was in march. i was waiting at the lights in the late afternoon at thornleigh, and i saw a "falling star" that was so bright that it was apparent in reasonably bright sunlight.it caught my eye and i could not tell how far away it was (maybe 100 miles or so possibly) and it was traveling extremely fast and it started glowing brighter until it was a bright green color and then it simply extinguished itself before it rained in small particles upon the ground.

i looked on a web site that is dedicated to "fireball" sightings, and it was not reported. i was astounded that the other people in the traffic beside me seemed not to notice, and when the traffic lights went green everyone proceeded oblivious to what they could have seen if only they were looking. i told my friend about it on the phone when he rang me up about an unrelated matter but he was not interested. i told him that i hoped it was not the beginning of a large shower of them.

then, 2 months later, i saw what may have been another one near katoomba (where i was), and i was coincidentally with my friend in his car at the time (i do not have very much interaction with this friend).

we were driving down the street in katoomba at night when i heard a whistling sound like a firework (skyrocket), and about 1 second later i saw a bright trail of light heading downwards which was terminated with a very bright flash of white light. i said "f*ck me dead!! did you see that?". and before he answered, there was a clapping sound like a nearby thunderbolt that drowned out his answer. he was not convinced it was a small meteorite and maintained it could have been a firework, but i saw it (he only saw the lighting effects on the street) and it was heading downwards, and as well as that, the thunderclap sound occurred about 3 seconds after the bright terminating flash which would position it about 3 miles away, and no firework is that powerful to make such a loud sound from 3 miles away.

i wondered whether the earth was going to enter a meteor storm (which is many fragments of a larger object that was previously broken into smaller pieces), but he was not terribly interested.

debris fields of very distant large objects that have been fragmented can be very voluminous, and at the speeds that they cross our orbit, there can be many months between the intersections of all the fragments with our orbit (depending on their own particular trajectories resulting from the event that originally fragmented the larger body).

no one was aware of the existence of the object that terrorized russia yesterday, and if it had had a deeper angle of entry, then the atmosphere would not have tore it to pieces before it hit the ground.

another mildly worrying fact is that all the NEO rogues that have been discovered are in the portion of sky that is facing away from the sun since they require sunlight to be bounced off them to be detected by telescopes. any potential ingressors that come from the sunlit side of the sky are impossible to detect.

i will grant that they would have to have been heading toward us for less than six months (since the sunlit portion of sky (for the whole world) was the night side of the sky six months earlier), but objects that are 100 meters or so in diameter would not be visible in the night sky six months ago at the distance they would have been away from us.

i have long been interested in asteroid impacts and it is surprising to me that the best site so far to explore the parameters in this day and age is a simple asteroid impact calculator with stock phrases that do not accurately describe the situation at the given location with the factors given the input parameters.

here it is. http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ it is disappointingly shallow and inaccurate in it's descriptions of the environmental results of very large value inputs.
try it out and see for yourself.



naturalplastic
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16 Feb 2013, 10:33 am

I was walking through the local schoolyard late at night some years ago and was startled to see a sudden streak of light appear in the dark sky above the trees and houses.

A bright line of light trailing some unseen falling object cut the sky- a narrow line- green on one side, and white on the other.

Just a smooth narrow line of color- like a narrow glowing paint brush stroke.

And then it just vanished.

Strained my eyes to examine the sky and ground beneath the trajectory of the now vanished streak, but saw nothing but black sky and undisturbed landscape. No house getting hit by a meteor- darn!

Described this 'shooting star' I saw to my mom. She just poopooed it as a firework. I honestly dont know.

Thats my one alledged shooting star.

From what your saying it sounds like you saw the real thing twice.

But doesnt sound only go 800 mph (or about 1200 feet a second)?

If the bang was three seconds after the flash then wouldnt the epicenter be only be 3600 feet away(less than one mile, and not three miles)? I know sound travels somewhat faster at higher altitudes but not that fast surely.



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16 Feb 2013, 11:54 am

naturalplastic wrote:
I was walking through the local schoolyard late at night some years ago and was startled to see a sudden streak of light appear in the dark sky above the trees and houses.

A bright line of light trailing some unseen falling object cut the sky- a narrow line- green on one side, and white on the other.

Just a smooth narrow line of color- like a narrow glowing paint brush stroke.

And then it just vanished.

Strained my eyes to examine the sky and ground beneath the trajectory of the now vanished streak, but saw nothing but black sky and undisturbed landscape. No house getting hit by a meteor- darn!

Described this 'shooting star' I saw to my mom. She just poopooed it as a firework. I honestly dont know.

Thats my one alledged shooting star.

From what your saying it sounds like you saw the real thing twice.

But doesnt sound only go 800 mph (or about 1200 feet a second)?

If the bang was three seconds after the flash then wouldnt the epicenter be only be 3600 feet away(less than one mile, and not three miles)? I know sound travels somewhat faster at higher altitudes but not that fast surely.


Did it have a pale greenish glow?