Meteorite hits central Russia, more than 500 people hurt

[bigross86]

Meteorite hits central Russia, more than 500 people hurt

Meteorite hits central Russia, more than 500 people hurt
By Natalia Shurmina and Andrey Kuzmin
CHELYABINSK, Russia | Fri Feb 15, 2013 6:39am EST



(Reuters) - More than 500 people were injured when a meteorite shot across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, sending fireballs crashing to Earth, shattering windows and damaging buildings.

People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 1,500 km (950 miles) east of Moscow.

A fireball blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 200 km (125 miles) away in Yekaterinburg. Car alarms went off, windows shattered and mobile phone networks were interrupted.

"I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day," said Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains.

"I felt like I was blinded by headlights," he said.

No fatalities were reported but President Vladimir Putin, who was due to host Finance Ministry officials from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were informed.

A local ministry official said such incidents were extremely rare and Friday's events might have been linked to an asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool due to pass Earth at a distance of 27,520 km (17,100 miles) but this was not confirmed.

Russia's space agency Roscosmos said the meteorite was travelling at a speed of 30 km (19 miles) per second and that such events were hard to predict. The Interior Ministry said the meteorite explosion had caused a sonic boom.

Russia's Emergencies Ministry said 514 people had sought medical help, mainly for light injuries caused by flying glass, and that 112 of those were kept in hospital. Search groups were set up to look for the remains of the meteorite.

"There have never been any cases of meteorites breaking up at such a low level over Russia before," said Yuri Burenko, head of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Emergencies Ministry.

WINDOWS BREAK, FRAMES BUCKLE

Windows were shattered on Chelyabinsk's central Lenin Street and some of the frames of shop fronts buckled.

A loud noise, resembling an explosion, rang out at around 9.20 a.m. (12:20 a.m. ET). The shockwave could be felt in apartment buildings in the industrial city's center.

"I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend," said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name. "Then there was a flash and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shockwave that smashed windows."

A wall was damaged at the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant but a spokeswoman said there was no environmental threat.

Although such events are rare, a meteorite is thought to have devastated an area of more than 2,000 sq km (1,250 miles) in Siberia in 1908, smashing windows as far as 200 km (125 miles) from the point of impact.

The Emergencies Ministry described Friday's events as a "meteor shower in the form of fireballs" and said background radiation levels were normal. It urged residents not to panic.

Chelyabinsk city authorities urged people to stay indoors unless they needed to pick up their children from schools and kindergartens. They said what sounded like a blast had been heard at an altitude of 10,000 meters (32,800 feet).

The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 46 meters in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.

Television, weather and communications satellites fly about 500 miles higher. The moon is 14 times farther away.

(Additional reporting by Natalia Shurmina in Yekaterinburg and Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Writing by Alexei Anishchuk and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Michael Holden)

[DarthSiddius]

Here's a video of the burning meteorite captured from a dash cam




The sonic boom from the meteor entering the atmosphere (lower your volume before playing!)

[Chogy]

WOW! From Fox News:

Hundreds injured by blasts as meteor falls in Russia

Read more: Hundreds injured by blasts as meteor falls in Russia | Fox News

We knew it was just a matter of time. Hopefully, there will be few fatalities.

[Chogy]

I was watching a few YouTube videos of this thing. Awesome power and noise from an object, if it was a solid metal (like nickel-iron), that was no bigger than a pickup truck.

I'm surprised the people videoing from their car weren't shouting "*&*&^&^ HOLY MOTHER &^&(&!!!!" Most of them drove on without saying too much.

I suspect a few thought "It's an inbound nuke" and it got me thinking - if viewing an object entering the atmosphere, I think you can tell them apart by the trail they'd leave behind. A meteor is going to leave a variable trail as it spits off chunks of rock. The glow will vary as it descends, and it'll leave behind thick smoky residue, like this one.

But if the object leaves a clean trail doesn't blow off chunks of debris, and has a compact and constant glow at the front of the trail... time to duck and cover!

[Albany Rifles]

This was even talked about on Sports Radio this AM.

Reminded me of an event which happened at FT Irwin in NOV 86. We were way out in the deep dark beyond and it was pitch black. We had gathered all of the battalions officers together to put out a FRAGO so we basically had a collection of jeeps in circle and were milling about in the dark waiting to start. The obeservor/controllers were in a circle about 25 meters away.


Beautiful clear cold night.

Suddenly we were all bathed in light. We all hit the ground thinking it was a flare. We looked up and saw this enormous fire ball roaring across the sky! We thought it was a meteor but it seemed to go on so long. Folks where yelling WTF all over the place and said the OPFOR had fired some new simulation weapon at our task force. We quickly discounted this when the OCs were reacting just like us. This fireball went almost from horizon to horizon

After the light faded we went back to business.

The next day we found out it was from a huge Soviet rocket which had failed part way into the launch and didn't quite achieve orbit. We saw it burning up on reentry. I thought of that when I watched this amazing video.

[kato]

I'm surprised the people videoing from their car weren't shouting "*&*&^&^ HOLY MOTHER &^&(&!!!!" Most of them drove on without saying too much.

Most of the videos were taken by fixed dashboard cameras, not people whipping it out - usually without sound. There's also a couple videos where people had parked on the side of the road as soon as they saw "something".

[YellowFever]

Holy shit, I've watched an idiot journalist ask this on CNN a few days ago in regards to the asteroid that'll near miss us today and I just heard Geraldo Rivera ask the same question in regards to the meteorite that hit Russia a few hours ago.

They were both wondering if global warming had anything to do with this.

American journalism is down the toilet....

[Parihaka]

Well technically speaking it didn't actually 'hit' Russia but blew up mid air. Still, a mighty impressive display by Mother Nature and thank god they didn't think it was a nuke and start lobbing some in response.

[Mihais]

Well technically speaking it didn't actually 'hit' Russia but blew up mid air. Still, a mighty impressive display by Mother Nature and thank god they didn't think it was a nuke and start lobbing some in response.

Yep,the aliens really dodged a nuke this time.Next one they may not be so lucky.

Vlad was pushing for international missile defense.Now we'll see the birth of the PDF(Planetary Defense Force).Star Fleet is next.

A bit more serious,I was watching a while back something about how many asteroids are lurking in the dark,cold space.We're really lucky to have the Moon on our side,but we're' actually at the mercy of the fate.

[S2]

Two B.B.s in the sky but...sh!t happens so who knows?

[Parihaka]

Yep,the aliens really dodged a nuke this time.Next one they may not be so lucky.

Vlad was pushing for international missile defense.Now we'll see the birth of the PDF(Planetary Defense Force).Star Fleet is next.

A bit more serious,I was watching a while back something about how many asteroids are lurking in the dark,cold space.We're really lucky to have the Moon on our side,but we're' actually at the mercy of the fate.

Just to be again annoyingly technical we're getting a fair idea of the number of asteroids orbiting at roughly the same distance as us from the sun (i.e. the ones likely to impact us) and there ain't a hell of a lot left as they're a fair old size. Most of the asteroids in the same orbital pattern as earth are the leftovers from the Earth/Theia impact, the vast majority of which have already impacted with the Earth/Moon, as can be witnessed by the Moons farside, interspersed with the damage from the great bombardment of course. (I do wish NASA had had the balls to land on the farside, so much more interesting in a solar system sense)

Much more numerous are the meteoroids formed from the collisions of those asteroids of which there are at least billions in near earth orbits but which generally burn up harmlessly because they are small, such as this current meteor, which hopefully has scattered some meteorites for study.

[gunnut]

Holy shit, I've watched an idiot journalist ask this on CNN a few days ago in regards to the asteroid that'll near miss us today and I just heard Geraldo Rivera ask the same question in regards to the meteorite that hit Russia a few hours ago.

They were both wondering if global warming had anything to do with this.

American journalism is down the toilet....

You're shitting me!? No one is that stupid. Not even the journalists.

How can anyone think "global warming" or "climate change" could have anything to do with a giant rock falling from the sky?

Hell, if anything, more CO2 in the atmosphere makes it denser, and thus harder for an asteroid to get through.

[Parihaka]

NASA's initial analysis

Preliminary information indicates that a meteor in Chelyabinsk, Russia, is not related to asteroid 2012 DA14, which is flying by Earth safely today.

The Russia meteor is the largest reported since 1908, when a meteor hit Tunguska, Siberia. The meteor entered the atmosphere at about 40,000 mph (18 kilometers per second). The impact time was 7:20:26 p.m. PST, or 10:20:26 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 (3:20:26 UTC on Feb. 15), and the energy released by the impact was in the hundreds of kilotons.

Based on the duration of the event, it was a very shallow entry. It was larger than the meteor over Indonesia on Oct. 8, 2009. Measurements are still coming in, and a more precise measure of the energy may be available later. The size of the object before hitting the atmosphere was about 49 feet (15 meters) and had a mass of about 7,000 tons.

The meteor, which was about one-third the diameter of asteroid 2012 DA14, was brighter than the sun. Its trail was visible for about 30 seconds, so it was a grazing impact through the atmosphere.

It is important to note that this estimate is preliminary, and may be revised as more data is obtained.

The comments below are suitably depressing... How people can access an internet site and still be so stupid remains beyond me

[gunnut]

NASA's initial analysis

The comments below are suitably depressing... How people can access an internet site and still be so stupid remains beyond me

Wow! There sure are a lot of fucking idiots commenting on that site.

I love the theme: why didn't NASA track this object?

Equally impressive: NASA knew about it but didn't want to tell the evil Russians.

Interestingly, everyone wants NASA to track these objects. Why don't these people run to their favorite international entity that can solve all of their problems, the UN?

[Doktor]

Because it isn't reformed. As it is now it suits only USA, just like NASA.