Holy Cow.
Source: Voice of Russia
Meteorite crash in Russia: explosions in Chelyabinsk (VIDEO). 2 15 2013
A series of explosions in the skies of Russia’s Urals region, reportedly caused by a meteor shower, has sparked panic in three major cities. Witnesses said that houses shuddered, windows were blown out and cellphones stopped working.
In Chelyabinsk, witnesses said the explosion was so loud that it resembled an earthquake and thunder at the same time, and that there were huge trails of smoke across the sky. Others reported seeing burning objects fall to earth.
Office buildings in downtown Chelyabinsk are being evacuated. The regional Emergency Ministry said the phenomenon was a meteorite shower, but locals have speculated that it was a military fighter jet crash or a missile explosion.
“According to preliminary data, the flashes seen over the Urals were caused by meteorite shower,” the Emergency Ministry told Itar-Tass news agency.
That’s so 2012, man.
Nine astonishing videos of the strike: TPM
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 7:45 am
SPACECANNON!
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 8:12 am
Meanwhile…
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 8:23 am
Here’s a nice compilation of shots of the streak from various perspectives:
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 8:53 am
Great videos at TPM. Those big bangs are NOT ‘impacts’ BTW (although some debris did fall), but rather sonic booms as the meteor split the clear-cold early morning Russian sky.
This was all over the early AM news. Some reports claimed hundreds of injuries (Reuters claims 500 injuries). I doubt it. Lots of minor injuries from shattered windows I guess… But little or no actual impact damage. Obviously, people were shaken (*I* would be!), but I’d guess the main damage is a LOT of busted glass! These type of meteors typically blow up high in the atmosphere. Still, the 1908 Siberian Tunguska ‘event’ flashed in my mind. MUCH bigger than this (thank Gaia).
As Max’s clip in #3 shows, a close fly-by also took place this morning. It’s a shooting gallery out there!
A History Channel ‘The Universe’ episode on meteors:
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 10:43 am
BTW – They’re NOT ‘meteorites’ until they actually hit the ground – they’re simply ‘meteors’!
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 10:52 am
I heard this morning that one theory for the high number of injuries from broken glass was due to the spectacular ‘train’ as it’s called which drew a lot of people to the windows just in time for the shock wave to hit and blast all that glass in their faces.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 11:11 am
Yup. Just by chance, I watched ‘The Day of The Triffids’ (1962) last night. Only a ‘so-so’ flick, but it starts with a beautiful meteor shower – but everybody wakes up the next morning – BLIND – and then the walking killer plants from space show up!
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 11:32 am
Tomorrow in Siberia?
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 11:35 am
Unlikely!
But it’d be a bad day in Yakutsk!
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 12:28 pm
Day Of The Triffids, man. So Classic.
PS: For a real blast from the past — watch the first three minutes of this utterly hilarious Linda Blair disco-skating movie:
Sometimes I miss the seventies. Sigh.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 12:33 pm
Not only do I not miss that but if I did even a little bit I surely wouldn’t admit it.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 12:50 pm
Eek! Roller skates and Disco! Two of my most unfavourite things! What awful ‘music’! You can really see the motivation for Punk in ’79! Poor Linda – Oh ICK! Sometimes I really DON’T miss the SEVENTIES! ARGH!
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 1:06 pm
I was trying to figure out what roller boogie had to do with the meteor and then I got it. If I suddenly found myself back in that era I’d be fervently hoping for a killer asteroid to strike. Or even better… TURTOX.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 1:10 pm
To wrench the thread back from the non-sequiturists, this is claimed to be a hole in an icy lake where a fragment of the meteor made landfall. I suppose it qualifies as a meteorite now.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 1:10 pm
Inevitable I suppose.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 1:18 pm
Is that Max Vicious on bass? And who’s the little Nazi bird with the white Go-Go boots?
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 1:24 pm
I tried, but non-sequiturists will not be denied. It’s the New Worlds way.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 1:41 pm
Anarchy for the NW, man.
That’s a freakishly large hole in the ice, man.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 3:04 pm
It was a freakishly large meteor, according to Scientific American (as reported on DailyKos here). Estimated size was 50 feet in diameter. Really quite a big deal when you consider the energy released by the explosion was on the order of 20 times that of Hiroshima. That makes it the largest airburst since the 1908 Tunguska event.
Also, a little closer to (my) home there was this:
Feels like we’re suddenly in a shooting gallery. BTW – there’s a very cool graphic on that DailyKos page showing the orbits and approaches of the Russian meteor and 2012 DA14.
Comment on February 16, 2013 @ 6:26 pm
Just found this site linked from the DailyKos thread.
Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News
Good place to keep track of all the atmospheric ordinance.
Comment on February 16, 2013 @ 6:34 pm
Obviously we are a long way from having any evidence for this, and (unless the folks at WISE are keeping secrets they really shouldn’t) pretty good evidence that no such object exists. However, there is this (conspiracy) theory that an object, sometimes referred to as Nemesis, has been meandering through the galaxy on a track that brings it very close to our solar system. Perhaps a giant rogue planet or perhaps some sort of dark star, every 32 million years it disturbs our Oort Cloud and brings about a 100,000 year period of heavy bombardment by ice and rock from the edge of the solar system.
As you might gather from the above paragraph, I put this theory in the same box with “space aliens orchestrated the JFK assassination.” However, a couple of anomalous celestial events just happened in a stunningly short window of time. I know enough to discern that the people behind the “every 32 million years a geologic layer forms indicative of extraterrestrial impacts” assertion are pandering to nuts rather than practicing rigorous science. However, I am not inclined to deny hard evidence. If the weeks ahead involve even more of these extremely rare meteor events, it could just be that all this talk of a well-resourced global defense against celestial bombardment is 5-10 years behind what it would have taken to prevent disaster.
Comment on February 16, 2013 @ 6:57 pm