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Here's a great dashcam video that captures the meteor arcing across its field of vision and lighting up the scene more brightly than the sun like a nuclear blas
by creamyhorror 14y ago
Here's a great dashcam video that captures the meteor arcing across its field of vision and lighting up the scene more brightly than the sun like a nuclear blast (first submitted to HN by dennisgorelik). I almost thought it was a hoax, and even tried to examine the video for signs that it was CGI.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJOJ6B2XOyA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJOJ6B2XOyA
The guy doesn't even say anything for a long while, just starts speeding up.
edit: Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy (Slate) think it's unrelated to the 2012DA14 asteroid, because of the timing gap and incorrect direction of travel. http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/15/breaking_huge_meteor_explodes_over_russia.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/15/breaking... This could have turned out very badly if the thing had hit the ground...could we have caught this one, and why didn't we?
- andrewfelix 14y agoThat is surreal. My jaw dropped as it came into perspective. Looks like it came straight out of Hollywood.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoThe part where the meteor gets brighter but isn't moving relative to the sky is pretty scary. When you look up and see a meteor and it just gets brighter instead of moving left or right that means it's headed directly toward you.
- sneak 14y agoAny meteor big enough to make that kind of light that's visible from the ground is "headed directly toward you" at that scale, I'd say.
- nzonbi 14y agoAbsolutely sublime video. So many things about our world mixing in. I suggest complimenting it with the full tune, that plays in the background: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN87dn1ZPhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN87dn1ZPhw
- rooker 14y agoAnd we get to enjoy the pleasant tunes of Leona Lewis.
- artmageddon 14y agoI'm glad I'm not the only one who identified that :)
- heed 14y agoWhy does the timestamp on the video say December 31st 2012?
- krasin 14y agoI have also seen videos of this event dated by January 1970. The explanation is silly: most of the drivers don't care to set the correct date on their dashcams.
- tripzilch 14y agoJust like none of them have changed their car radios from the Russian factory default setting of 'generic trance music'.
- barrkel 14y agoFro cheap cams, it's a slight PITA to set the date. For one I know of, it forgets the date if it loses all power, and the date is set by putting a special text file in the root directory of its storage.
- sageikosa 14y agoCan't resist: In Russia, clock changes you!
- ErikAugust 14y agoEverything interesting seems to happen right after the UNIX epoch.
- xxpor 14y agoOr if you're in America, right before :)
- ErikAugust 14y agoIt'd be funny in Back to the Future if something reset and Doc and Marty went back to December 31, 1969.
- abcd_f 14y agoThe RT article quote local (military) newspaper as saying "A missile salvo blew the meteorite to pieces at an altitude of 20 kilometers". I wonder if it's true.
- lutusp 14y agoNot true. Other, more plausible, reports say the meteorite is now located in a crater west of Chelyabinsk.
- madaxe 14y agoIf it is true, they've been lobbing nukes - their principal ABM for ICBMs/fast re-entry is the Gazelle - 10kt warhead.
- ra 14y agoI wonder if it's possible that it was an automated response? Some combination of mass and speed detected by radar (or satellite?) triggering an S2A response.
- jacquesm 14y agoNot a chance. Taking into account: - the size of Russia - The range of surface to air missiles - the chance of missing an object that does not give off a heat signature until it is about to hit. Any kind of suggestion that we have the tech or the means (financially) to do this for a large chunk of the planet is nonsense, and for a smaller area the odds of hitting something are probably so bad that it isn't worth it.
- ra 14y agoYeah but this isn't a random location. Chelyabinsk being home to Russia's nuclear research, and relatively close to Baikonur.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoAnd looking at the flash, and the effects (or not) that it had on the solid state imagers, I think we can rule out a nuclear intercept. My reasoning is that a 10kT nuclear detonation @ 20km would toast any unprotected CCD or CMOS image element looking at it.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- madaxe 14y agoThere probably is a nuclear blast in that mix. They stated that anti-missile systems intercepted it - the only thing with a hope in hell of reaching and destroying/breaking a meteor is the 53T6 Gazelle, which has a 10kt warhead.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoAs far as I know the only active ABM system in Russia is around Moscow. Chelyabinsk is not anywhere near the Moscow Oblast.
- madaxe 14y agoThey've got them peppered through the Urals. Lots of Cold War silos in that neck of the woods, and definitely active ABMs - saw them being driven just outside of astrakhan in the dead of night last year. Also, kaz is full of Russian military hardware. Baikonur for instance is definitely covered by ABMs, as to not do so would be an untenable risk as far as Russia is concerned.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoAre you certain? This would be news to the world. For reference, here's what an ABM transporter looks like: http://www.ausairpower.net/PVO-S/53T6-SH-08-Gazelle-ABM-TL-1S.jpg http://www.ausairpower.net/PVO-S/53T6-SH-08-Gazelle-ABM-TL-1... Or this: http://www.ausairpower.net/PVO-S/Gorgon-ABM-Transporter-Loader-1S.jpg http://www.ausairpower.net/PVO-S/Gorgon-ABM-Transporter-Load... Here's what a portable ICBM looks like: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Moscow_Parad_2008_Ballist.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Moscow_Pa... Or this: http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/images/rs24tel.jpg http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/images/rs24tel.jpg
- madaxe 14y agoYup, those would be the ones. Nice long convoy of them with APCs and tanks at the head and tail, cruising down the highway. Seeing this kind of stuff is par for the course out there though. Drove from Rostov na donu to Stalingrad and there were huge (and I mean HUGE) convoys of tanks cruising down to syria's neck of the woods. This isn't news to the world, it's just known stuff that isn't talked about as it doesn't mesh very well with realpolitik. Edit: think there was also a satan in the convoy we saw, two massive stages on separate carriers. Proper "oh holy shit what am I seeing pretend I'm not here" stuff.
- jevinskie 14y agoCan anyone explain why I see so many dashcam videos from Russia?
- DanBC 14y agoTerrible roads, terrible cars, terrible drivers, a lot of alcohol, and terrible insurance companies mean that people want dashcams to try to help present their side when there's an accident. Youtube is full of really scary Russian dashcam videos.
- jws 14y agoI believe it is a defense against deliberate accident and injury extortion.
- johnward 14y agoYep. I've seen a few where pedestrians attempted to get hit.
- johnward 14y agoIf the crazy shit that is caught on dash cams was going on every day I'd have one too.
- rdtsc 14y agoCorruption. * Pedestrians are corrupt -- they throw themselves in front of your car then sue for damages. * Other motorists are corrupt -- they lie about the accident facts * Cops are corrupt -- easily bought off and bribed (or tapped through nepotism)
- diminish 14y agothis was the exact explanation given by a driver with a dashcam to me. in russia, most police do not feel responsible to organize traffic, help solve deadlocks, and give service to citizens. they behave like a mob entitled to rob you in a various ways due to false,confusing interpretation of legal texts.
- 14y ago
- 127001brewer 14y ago...could we have caught this one ... According to Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson (speaking on NBC's "Today Show") it was too small to detect.[1] [1] http://todaynews.today.com/_news/2013/02/15/16973245-neil-degrasse-tyson-russian-meteorite-was-once-a-decade-event?lite http://todaynews.today.com/_news/2013/02/15/16973245-neil-de...
- dennisgorelik 14y agoMy guess is HN rating system discriminates against submissions on YouTube. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224466 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224466
- edouard1234567 14y agoThe Lada is having a hard time catching up with the meteorite.