Meteorite impact in Urals

[DocM]

Not so sure about the Russian missiles shooting it down, but....

http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/

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.

According to unconfirmed reports, the meteorite was intercepted by an air defense unit at the Urzhumka settlement near Chelyabinsk. A missile salvo reportedly blew the meteorite into pieces at an altitude of 20 kilometers.

A bright flash was seen in the Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and Sverdlovsk regions, Russia?s Republic of Bashkiria and in northern Kazakhstan.

Lifenews tabloid reported that at least one piece of the fallen object caused damage on the ground in Chelyabinsk. According to preliminary reports, it crashed into a wall near a zinc factory, disrupting the fiber-optic connections of internet providers and mobile operators.

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.

Police in the Chelyabinsk region are reportedly on high alert, and have enacted the ?Fortress? plan in order to protect vital infrastructure.

Office buildings in downtown Chelyabinsk are being evacuated. Injuries were reported at one of the city?s secondary schools, supposedly from smashed windows. No other injuries have been reported so far.

An emergency message published on the website of the Chelyabinsk regional authority urged residents to pick up their children from school and remain at home if possible.

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 [a] meteorite shower," the Emergency Ministry told Itar-Tass news agency.

The Emergency Ministry reported that no civil aircraft were damaged by the meteorite shower, and that ?all flights proceed according to schedule.? No local power stations were damaged, either.

Residents of the town of Emanzhilinsk, some 50 kilometers from Chelyabinsk, said they witnessed a flying object that suddenly burst into flames, broke apart and fell to earth. A black cloud was reported hanging above the town.

Witnesses in Chelyabinsk said the city?s air smells like gunpowder.

Many locals reported that the explosion rattled their houses and smashed windows.

?This explosion, my ears popped, windows were smashed? phone doesn?t work,? Evgeniya Gabun wrote on Twitter.

?My window smashed, I am all shaking! Everybody says, that a plane crashed,? Twitter user Katya Grechannikova reported.

>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lparYcfSRGs

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Wow. It was much brighter than I expected. I think I would have freaked out if it blew out my windows and made my cell phone stop working.

[mudslag]

Russians love their dash cams, cool beans still

Prop related to this

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/11/asteroid_2012_da14_space_rock_will_miss_the_earth_by_17_000_miles.html

[-T- Member]

There are some videos out there of the shockwave. That thing would have been terrifying

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Here's another one (boom @ 12 seconds):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GRqK3OWLqs

[insanelyapple]

I'm not an expert but i think there was no chance to use missles - impact was too unpredictable and sudden. Anyway, it must be connected to 2012 DA14 asteroid - this meteorite was probably some debris of asteroid.

[sanctified Veteran]

Latest report: 500 dead.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

Latest report: 500 dead.

Injured, not dead.

[DocM]

Injured, not dead.

Media here says 400+ injured mainly by flying glass. RT says 500. Either way this is a major incident as injuries of any kind from meteorites are exceedingly rare, but when they do happen big ones cause bunches.

Whatever, something a bit larger than this hitting a densly populated area could cause much more than glass cuts. Maybe this will get interest restarted in an international space-watch / meteor interception system.

[Shaun N.]

There is a near miss due in about 9 hours, this could have been some debris from that

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

Either way this is a major incident as injuries of any kind from meteorites are exceedingly rare, but when they do happen big ones cause bunches.

No doubt. Hundreds and maybe even thousands of households have had their windows blown at their homes, in winter. That's a major inconvenience, to say the least, and a risk of overexposure to cold.

Some people are also in critical conditions.

Maybe this will get interest restarted in an international space-watch / meteor mitigation system.

I sure hope so. However, this would probably mean placing weapons onto the orbit - a practise now banned by the international treaties.

[DocM]

Treaties can change, and maybe they should. The missile interceptor, rail gun and directed energy techs are maturing rapidly, so perhaps it's time to start the conversation before a 50,000 mph Volkswagen (or Lincoln!!) lands in a metropolitan area.

[Gaffney]

Supposidly it was around several meters in diameter. What damage would one 20m cause, it's really unlikly it would hit a city but the sonic boom alone injured over 500 people. A slightly larger one could cause a mini Tunguska event.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

The invasion has begun. Time to restart the XCOM project and prepare the troops.

Seriously though, that is awesome.

[HawkMan]

Maybe this will get interest restarted in an international space-watch / meteor interception system.

To bad it's virtually impossible to watch a 360 degree ever expanding sphere. heck meteors don't even glow or anything so you can't watch it by optical means. no matter what way we do it we'll be extremely lucky to detect them with much more than a few hours warning, even an hour would actually be pretty lucky depending on the speed.

[Sadelwo]

"I was just a child when the stars fell from the skies..."

(Ace Combat 4 intro for those who don't get it)

[spacer]

That is pretty awesome, in the truest sense of the word. The video captures of it entering the atmosphere gave me goosebumps. Are there any pictures of the impact site? I wonder how big a crater is. Anyone know how far away it landed from this Russian city?

[Dot Matrix]

An astronaut dropped their Nokia phone?

[FrostAM]

It's incredible that it happened on the same day that another meteor is supposed to pass within 17,000 miles of Earth. For perspective, the moon is 238,900 miles away. This is a very interesting year already! And we're supposed to have two bright comets this year as well!

[szo]

Some of the news sites were reporting this to be the resulting crater:

(Don't think so though)

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

[Nick H. Supervisor]

That is pretty awesome, in the truest sense of the word. The video captures of it entering the atmosphere gave me goosebumps. Are there any pictures of the impact site? I wonder how big a crater is. Anyone know how far away it landed from this Russian city?

The photos won't look like much, apparently the meteorite landed in a lake. The BBC News article has more information, as well as a map to give you an idea of where it landed.

[spacer]

The photos won't look like much, apparently the meteorite landed in a lake. The BBC News article has more information, as well as a map to give you an idea of where it landed.

Thanks for the link. Too bad about it hitting water though, it would have been interesting to see the aftermath.

[Gaffney]

This video has the best audio, after the inital shockwave you can clearly hear the meteor disintegrating

Some of the news sites were reporting this to be the resulting crater:

That's actually a crater caused by a drilling rig collapse over a cavern filled with natural gas. To stop any explosion due to gas buildup they lit the gas and it's been burning since 1971.

[spy beef]

Could be the start of an alien invasion.

[spacer]

That sonic boom was incredible. Way louder than I expected.