A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, sending fireballs crashing to earth which shattered windows and damaged buildings, injuring more than 500 people.
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 950 miles east of Moscow.
The fireball, travelling at a speed of 19 miles per second according to Russia's space agency Roscosmos, had blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 125 miles away.
Car alarms went off, windows broke and mobile phone networks were interrupted. The Interior Ministry said the meteor explosion had caused a sonic boom.
"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, told Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov to help those affected.
Here is video of the event.
Some are speculating that this meteorite might have some connection to the giant asteroid that passed very closely to earth at 2:24 Eastern Time today.
And here was Neil deGrasse's response via Facebook:
And here is Professor deGrasse explaining exactly what happened on the Today show this morning.
Yeah you know I think it is a very good time to start thinking about lighting a fire under our space program, before the next, and possibly closer, asteroid does it for us.
That's some crazy footage!
ReplyDeleteLego Hair tweeted she saw the meteor from her window.
ReplyDeleteLOL
Was Sarah Palin watching from her porch?
ReplyDeletebitch, that thing was headed for WASILLA
ReplyDeletedamn it missed.
Fuck Yeah, Science!
ReplyDeleteOr is it the hand of Dog raining down his retribution for a corrupt papacy?
Just askin...
See what happened when Sarah took her eye off Russia?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, amazing stuff! "Dr Neil Da Grass" (As Savannah Guthro calls him) is so cool! Now the conspiracy theorists can't blame it on loud recordings of Ella Fitzgerald's voice.
I read that the reason they have so much footage of it is because the Russians distrust the police so much, that many install dash cams similar to what the police use here.
How about this for a jolt of consciousness: many Russians immediately assumed it was a missile fired upon them, by the U.S.
ReplyDeleteWhile most here would find that notion absurd, if you do some reading of history since 1945, it is an eye opener to learn of just how many times old Uncle Sam threatened Russia with nuclear attack. (Dozens)
So, it should not seem odd in the least, that the Russian people are skittish. Looking at the "gif" footage posted on this site, it looks a lot to me, like a nuclear airburst, alright.
There is a non-profit foundation, http://b612foundation.org/ whose mission is "to build, launch, and operate a space telescope to be placed in orbit around the Sun; to find and track threatening asteroids before they find us." The B621 foundation, featured yesterday on Science Friday on NPR, plans to launch the space telescope mid-2018. Thank goodness there are adults on this planet that are concerned for their fellow travelers on "Spaceship Earth."
ReplyDelete20 Hiroshima's is what I read the actual force of the explosion over Russia. They are checking the Ural lake to see if they can find fragments, very cool.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is that I and several other people on my FB feed made Sarah Palin jokes. (I feel like it's okay to joke since no one died. If those 1100 people had died rather been injured, I wouldn't have made a joke.)
ReplyDeleteHow is that the two biggest meteorites in recorded history both strike Russia??? I know Russia is huge, but dude, it's seriously so weird isn't it?
ReplyDeleteand as far as that asteroid goes, how come earth's gravity didn't pull it in?
ReplyDeleteIf something that huge crashed into that lake, wouldn't the water have come up WAY over the banks and caused flooding but all we see is a hole in the ice????
ReplyDelete