Russia reports amazing meteorite strike

[RJDiogenes]

I'm guessing he's speculating that this meteor and today's scheduled near miss are part of a larger group, and he's worried that there may be more strikes.

This is pretty amazing. I hope none of those people were badly injured. It sounds like the injuries are just from windows that were shattered by the shock wave. This is going to be interesting....

[Trekker4747]

billcosby wrote:

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These ones look as legit as the others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUBVjwteQ30
Now I have to bring up the other question in mind... is it customary to drive in Russia with a recording device on your dash?

It is actually, from what I understand. Driving laws and rules in Russia are... dicey. So many drivers have recording devices on their dash in order to help officials know what happened in accidents to determine fault.

[Ln X]

teacake wrote:

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You think it was launched?

Nah, it's not possible, this meteorite was travelling at 30 kilometers a second and there's no known technology which can fire an object that fast.

[SeerSGB]

sojourner wrote:

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Bad Astronomer says this is purely coincidence that this event occurred so close in time to the passing of 2102 DA14. I don't really like pure coincidence when dealing with astronomical scales. They tend to turn out not to be so purely coincidental.

Don't read me wrong. I don't go for conspiracy/wacko theories either. I just think it's way to early to write off as coincidence without further analysis.

You and me both. My first thought was that this thing is/was a chunk of DA14 or maybe a tag along.

[Asbo Zaprudder]

From the numerous videos and news reports, it looks to me as though this meteorite entered the atmosphere travelling roughly east (from the direction of the rising sun) to west. 2012 DA14 will pass by the Earth travelling south to north.

[Tom Hendricks]

teacake wrote:

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You think it was launched?

Then the bugs missed Buenos Aires by a large margin.

[Christopher]

Asbo Zaprudder wrote:

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From the numerous videos and news reports, it looks to me as though this meteorite entered the atmosphere travelling roughly east (from the direction of the rising sun) to west. 2012 DA14 will pass by the Earth travelling south to north.

Correct. Since the asteroid is approaching from the south, any smaller object associated with it would've hit the Southern Hemisphere. Russia is "behind" the Earth's curve from its POV. So it's impossible that this meteoroid could've been a moonlet of the asteroid or a fragment traveling along the same trajectory. This is just one hell of a humongous coincidence.

But hopefully it'll drive home the urgency of developing an effective asteroid defense system for the planet.

[bigdaddy]

I told my mom last night if the comet hit it would hit water or Russia.

They always hit Russia, next week Russia will come out and say it's the USA's fault.

[RoJoHen]

bigdaddy wrote:

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They always hit Russia,

Well, yeah. I mean, have you seen the X-Files?!

[Christopher]

bigdaddy wrote:

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I told my mom last night if the comet hit it would hit water or Russia.

What comet? The approaching body is a near-Earth asteroid made of stony material. It orbits close enough to the Sun that any ice would've long since evaporated away. Comets come from further out in the Solar system, past the "snow line."

And of course by last night we had 2012 DA14's orbit calculated precisely enough to know there was zero chance of it hitting the Earth. Something would've had to push it rather suddenly off course in order to make that happen.

Otherwise, as a rule, there's some merit to your observation. More than 3/4 of the Earth's surface is water, so the odds are heavily in favor of asteroids impacting or exploding over water. But the odds of an impact over Russia aren't quite as great. Certainly it's got a larger area than any other single country, but it's only a bit over 1/9 the total land area of the planet, so the odds overall are in favor of a land impact somewhere other than Russia.

[sojourner]

It's interesting to see how my post was taken since last night. No, I don't think it was launched, and no I don't think it's part of a fleet of asteroids that are going to strike us.

I was going more for the fact that in science a lot of discoveries start with someone saying "gee, that's funny". The coincidence of this event definitely falls in that territory and may lead us to discover additional knowledge about our solar system.

[RoJoHen]

sojourner wrote:

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and may lead us to discover additional knowledge about our solar system.

New headline: Scientists discover that our solar system is TRYING TO KILL US!

[Squiggy]

Tom Hendricks wrote:

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Then the bugs missed Buenos Aires by a large margin.

I'd like to know more.

Apparently this is the largest space impact since 1908 and the most injuries from an impact in recorded history.

[bigdaddy]

Well yes because if there is a big impact there will be no one to record it.

[Deranged Nasat]

RoJoHen wrote:

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New headline: Scientists discover that our solar system is TRYING TO KILL US!

To be fair, it's doing a rather poor job of it so far.