Meteor shower hits Russia

[Speed]

I first heard of it when I was at work. I and my fellow workers watched those videos in awe, having hard time to believe this.

 

That fireball looks exactly like in those U.S. movies. I'll tell you, if i saw one of those things coming at me (like in the first dashcam video), I'd definitely use underwear change!

 

No, the fireballs in movies are never bright enough, and they always travel too slowly, at least in the movies I've seen.

 

Imagine what a bigger asteroid would look like... this object was maybe 5-10 meters across and it was probably nearly as bright as the Sun or even brighter (it's hard to tell from the videos). Imagine what an asteroid 10000 meters across would look like as it approached the ground- everything line of sight to its fireball would probably flash into flame, maybe even into incandescent vapor. I do remember reading an account by a person who witnessed the 1908 Tunguska event fireball who said that it was so bright that the heat radiation coming off it was unbearable.

 

Anyway, at least it's a good day for glass sellers... :lol:

 

Hopefully, this event and the passage of 2012 DA14 will spur governments into more funding for asteroid survey telescopes and research into deflection strategies.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Speed

[Suchacz]

Bolids like this are falling to earth 1 time per month in average. But mostly it is without witnesses, because it falls to the ocean, or to uninhabited parts of continets. But radars detect them very acurately. So todays accident in Russia isnt as rare as most people thinks.

[HungaroJET]

So todays accident in Russia isnt as rare as most people thinks.

 

Yep, but that exploded meteor over Lugo in Italy in 1993 was more "huge" as this Chelyabinsk meteor.

Fortunately exploded "much more" higher.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_meteor_air_bursts

Edited February 15, 2013 by HungaroJET

[Speed]

I wanted to write 10 kilometers, on that altitude are forming contrails.

 

I'm not sure if you're implying this or not, but the smoke the object left behind is not a contrail- it's vaporized space rock. I'm sure some of that includes a bit of water, but I would imagine it's largely silicate and metal particles. You'll see them at any altitude. I watched the smoke trails/ionized air trails left behind from the brighter Leonid meteors during the 2001 Leonid meteor storm with binoculars- and those were probably all higher than 60 km up, maybe 100 km or so. They would last for like a minute, and it was cool watching winds in the upper atmosphere distort them into all sorts of weird shapes before they faded out.

 

Oh and I wish people would stop calling this a meteor shower... meteor showers are harmless events where a cloud of sand-sized and MAYBE pebble-sized meteroids from a common parent body burn up in the atmosphere.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Speed

[Laurius]

Amazing videos of that event today. Thanks for posting

 

Hopefully, this event and the passage of 2012 DA14 will spur governments into more funding for asteroid survey telescopes and research into deflection strategies.

 

Let's keep our fingers crossed...

 

 

Edit : an interesting thread about 2012 DA14 : http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=86030&highlight=meteor+impact

Edited February 15, 2013 by Laurius
forgot to add something

[Speed]

...

 

I might be fun to imagine such a huge object, but thankfully, none of the asteroids THAT size have a chance of impacting Earth, so videos like this will always just be fantasy. The biggest potential Earth impactor that I'm aware is 433 Eros, which is like 50 km across (correction- 30 km). That would definitely wipe out humanity, but the last I heard, it's pretty much guaranteed not to hit Earth in the next million years.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Speed

[159th_Viper]

That was pretty surreal.......imagine being there and witnessing that in realtime.........

 

but the last I heard, it's pretty much guaranteed not to hit Earth in the next million years.

 

Careful, you know what they say..........

 

Oooh, did I just hear a caterpillar fart? :P

[Pilotasso]

I'm not sure if you're implying this or not, but the smoke the object left behind is not a contrail- it's vaporized space rock. I'm sure some of that includes a bit of water, but I would imagine it's largely silicate and metal particles. You'll see them at any altitude. I watched the smoke trails/ionized air trails left behind from the brighter Leonid meteors during the 2001 Leonid meteor storm with binoculars- and those were probably all higher than 60 km up, maybe 100 km or so. They would last for like a minute, and it was cool watching winds in the upper atmosphere distort them into all sorts of weird shapes before they faded out.

 

Oh and I wish people would stop calling this a meteor shower... meteor showers are harmless events where a cloud of sand-sized and MAYBE pebble-sized meteroids from a common parent body burn up in the atmosphere.

 

Most likely ice, a metallic rock would'nt explode in the upper atmo like that (Should it be metallic the consequences would be uninmaginable). Just like the Tunguska incident.

[104th_Maverick]

Some 'unconfirmed' reports on Russian media saying the object was engaged with air defenses..... please!!!

 

There is no possible way they could have tracked it in space and then relay that information to the batteries on the ground to track and fire in time.

 

What is it with these sensationalists?

[104th_Cobra]

:noexpression:one thing is certain, radar and all guismos Russians must have had an unconventional day.

 

Oh yeah, today they spilled their coffee over the knees, for sure, looking at the screens.

[104th_Cobra]

;1676404']Some 'unconfirmed' reports on Russian media saying the object was engaged with air defenses..... please!!!

 

There is no possible way they could have tracked it in space and then relay that information to the batteries on the ground to track and fire in time.

 

What is it with these sensationalists?

 

30 km/s? Is there any missile capable of intercept this scale of velocity? I don't know what are the velocities of reentry nuclear ogives...

[104th_Maverick]

I know, it's plain laughable! 'Apparently' these comments came from a military official but it could just be the media talking sh!t as per usual!

 

On the note of sh!t talking...

 

''Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the head of the Russian Liberal-Democratic Party, said that no meteor fell in the Urals on Friday – the US “tested a new weapon” over the region, he claimed.''

 

http://rt.com/politics/zhirinovsky-meteorite-american-weapon-316/

 

Maximum lol

 

This Vladimir chap must have financial interests in Russian Weapon factories or something.. warmonger much??

Edited February 15, 2013 by [Maverick]

[NineLine]

Pretty crazy stuff, and with today's world, there is always a lens on everything it seems...

[104th_Cobra]

;1676409']I know, it's plain laughable! 'Apparently' these comments came from a military official but it could just be the media talking sh!t as per usual!

 

On the note of sh!t talking...

 

''Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the head of the Russian Liberal-Democratic Party, said that no meteor fell in the Urals on Friday – the US “tested a new weapon” over the region, he claimed.''

 

http://rt.com/politics/zhirinovsky-meteorite-american-weapon-316/

 

Maximum lol

 

This Vladimir chap must have financial interests in Russian Weapon factories or something.. warmonger much??

 

Wait for the "Anti-Christ coming" answers for this event... At least Zhirinovsky wasn't punching anyone in the face :)

[Speed]

;1676404']Some 'unconfirmed' reports on Russian media saying the object was engaged with air defenses..... please!!!

 

There is no possible way they could have tracked it in space and then relay that information to the batteries on the ground to track and fire in time.

 

What is it with these sensationalists?

 

Yes, those reports are rubbish. Russian SAMs are good, but they are not THAT good. :D

[104th_Maverick]

What's your point? Exactly....

 

I found this mate while doing a bit of searching...

 

''Many drivers in Russia have video recorders fitted in their cars in case of accidents or disputes with traffic police. Footage from these uploaded to YouTube show the fireball crashing to the ground.''

http://news.sky.com/story/1052514/meteorite-shower-hits-russia-injuring-over-900

[Speed]

Most likely ice, a metallic rock would'nt explode in the upper atmo like that (Should it be metallic the consequences would be uninmaginable). Just like the Tunguska incident.

 

Well, it sounds like this thing didn't explode in the upper atmosphere... sound more like the lower atmosphere. And secondly, even a rocky (or iron!) object will explode unless its bigger than something like 10-100 meters across (depending on the structural integrity of the object).

 

Imagine an asteroid plowing through Earth's atmosphere at 15 kilometers a SECOND. What happens is you get a TREMENDOUS pressure building up on the leading side of the object, and a near total vacuum on the trailing side. The total amount of force on the object is proportional to surface area, and structural integrity is more proportional to volume- so bigger objects suffer less than smaller objects.

 

For smaller objects, even stony or iron asteroids, what happens is that eventually, the pressure builds so high that the object begins to break up. Since the new, smaller pieces are even more subject to this atmospheric entry pressure, they too break up. What you get is a runaway process where in a very short time, the asteroid disintegrates, releasing all of its kinetic energy in one short burst of superheated air.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Speed

[HungaroJET]

30 km/s? Is there any missile capable of intercept this scale of velocity? I don't know what are the velocities of reentry nuclear ogives...

 

Yes, those reports are rubbish. Russian SAMs are good, but they are not THAT good. :D

 

30 km/s? :D That's ~90 Mach.

[Invader ZIM]

This event brings to question something else, though I have a feeling the nearby asteroid may have had something to do with this, what about the 2029 Apophis event? I mena even if Apophis doesn't hit, this thing could be dragging other debris near it that comes into the atmosphere like what we saw this morning.

 

http://gizmodo.com/5974708/apophis-may-destroy-earth-satellites-in-2029

 

It's even more massive, and going to come in closer than this one, plus it's going to change orbit and have another chance at us again in 2036.

[Speed]

This event brings to question something else, though I have a feeling the nearby asteroid may have had something to do with this, what about the 2029 Apophis event? I mena even if Apophis doesn't hit, this thing could be dragging other debris near it that comes into the atmosphere like what we saw this morning.

 

http://gizmodo.com/5974708/apophis-may-destroy-earth-satellites-in-2029

 

It's even more massive, and going to come in closer than this one, plus it's going to change orbit and have another chance at us again in 2036.

 

No, asteroids don't "drag" anything with them, unless they happen to have a moon. And Apophis is far too small to have a moon- any such moon would quickly be tidally disrupted and float away. First of all, gravity doesn't work that way (in space, there is no friction, and momentum must be conserved, so gravity tends to make objects curve around them, not be sucked into them), and secondly, the gravity of these objects is FAR FAR FAR too weak to really do much of anything at all. We're talking escape velocities of like, a few centimeters per second, at least for the little guys like Apophis.

 

Basically, the gravity of these little objects is far too low to hold onto anything, or influence anything whatsoever, or have any objects associated with them whatsoever. They lead solitary lives.

 

Like I said, the bigger asteroids can hold onto a moon or maybe two (but I am not personally aware of any triple asteroids myself) but that's it.

 

What can happen is that a planet's gravity can be strong enough that the tidal forces as the object approaches the planet will be strong enough to rip a loosely held "rubble pile" asteroid apart into little pieces. The little pieces will share similar orbits (assuming the object misses the planet) but eventually drift so that they are very far apart.

 

And this object also had nothing to do with today's pass of 2012 DA14. It's just an amazing coincidence.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Speed

[BIGNEWY]

 

:music_whistling:

[Flаnker]

Before the fall of the meteorite was a warning. In the sky were Su27.

[Flаnker]

[SkateZilla]

Someone get Bruce Willis on Speed dial.

[Sov13t]

Why is there so many dashcams in Russia?

 

Let's just say you want to have one, with the state of the legal system in Russia. However, I feel that this should be standard on all cars. So many people who shouldn't be driving on the roads... :noexpression:

 

;1676409']

This Vladimir chap must have financial interests in Russian Weapon factories or something.. warmonger much??

 

Think of him as the American Mccain... considered to be a "clown" of the Russian political system, likes to draw attention to himself.

 

 

---

 

 

My coworker is from the area, her relatives described the events. The main thing they noted was if you were outside you could feel the heat wave on your skin almost to a point of burning. Rumble, sound boom, explosion, windows broken, phones immediately dead - only internet. -10 Celsius outside.