27 ms·

Russian meteor largest in a century

242 points by ananyob 14y ago

whileonebegin 14y ago
Isn't it quite a coincidence that the largest meteor impact since 1908 occurs just hours before the closest fly-by of a large asteroid in 100 years? Yet, NASA claims these two are unrelated.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  Word is they were going in different directions.
- rwhitman 14y ago
  Yea I find this curious as well, what are the odds of that happening? How many other chunks of rock could be heading our way right now that are too small to be spotted?
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > Yea I find this curious as well, what are the odds of that happening? About '1' apparently.
  - smith234 14y ago
    Looks like we need something better to detect such kinds of occurances
- joshuahedlund 14y ago
  I'm very intrigued by this too. The consensus though seems to be that they came from completely different directions... here's a diagram that's making the rounds in Reddit[1]. It looks like this meteor landed in Russia hours before 2012DA14 even came close to being inside the moon's orbit, which makes it hard to imagine how one could have affected the other. [1] http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/Years/2013/February/images/Meteor5.png http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/Years/2013/February/i...
- paul_f 14y ago
  Simple really. The rock that landed in Russia was the one our alien protectors used to deflect DA14 from hitting the earth.
- svachalek 14y ago
  They are going in nearly opposite directions and are roughly a million miles apart from each other. Once you get a real idea of how empty space is (all of the not-to-scale diagrams you get in high school are no help here) it's harder to see how they could be related than not related. True random distributions just work that way. If something that's supposed to happen once in a hundred years is spaced out at roughly 100-year intervals, that's not random.
- martinced 14y ago
  I don't know but I do really hope that the one that hit Russia wasn't part of a smaller but faster one that did actually hit 2014-DA and change its course. Otherwise the northern emisphere is in trouble. I find that coincidence very, very weird too. And you gotta love all the people saying: "Nothing to see here, move along", as if they had themselves ran all the computation and knew for sure there was no relation between the two events.
  - Florin_Andrei 14y ago
    Relax, it's unrelated. http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/Years/2013/February/images/Meteor5.png http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/Years/2013/February/i... Coincidences do happen once in a while.
ceejayoz 14y ago
Well, that we've noticed, at least.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  That is an interesting point, If this had travelled over one of the poles would we have noticed? I tend to think that someone would have seen it, but we wouldn't have a dozen dash cam videos of it.
  - uvdiv 14y ago
    The infrasound detectors mentioned in the article can supposedly detect a 1-kiloton blast anywhere on earth [1] (page 15). This meteor was "hundreds of kilotons". http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/ISS_Publication/Infrasound_11-16.pdf http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/ISS_Publicati...
    - ceejayoz 14y ago
      Fascinating, thanks!
    - caf 14y ago
      That's true - we would detect it now. But the CTBTO International Monitoring System is a relatively new development (design and construction didn't start until 1997).
    - InclinedPlane 14y ago
      It also would show up on satellites that monitor for rocket launches and nuclear explosions. But whether or not the details would be released to the public is not entirely certain.
- manojlds 14y ago
  Did you read the article? That's what it says - A meteor that exploded over Russia this morning was the largest recorded object to strike the Earth
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Nice coverage. I especially like the infrasound analysis. The estimate of 100kT explosion suggests this thing was an order of magnitude scarier in person than it was on video, and it was pretty damn scary on video.
- free652 14y ago
  I believe the explosion was much higher in altitude somewhere between 6 to 30 miles, so video only captured the fragments of the asteroid.
- damoncali 14y ago
  So Fat Man and Little Boy were approx 15-20 kT. Is that apples to apples? If so, holy crap.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    Ground Zero allows you to pick a place and a bomb and nuke an area. Unfortunately it hops from 21 kT to 400 kT, but still. (http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html)
    - drakeandrews 14y ago
      Nuke Map allows you to enter the yield of your choice. http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
    - uvdiv 14y ago
      This is actually completely useless since these explosions are far closer to the earth -- probably between 100 meters and 1 km altitude [1], vs. 10-30 km estimates for this meteor. Also, it only shows thermal radiation effects, which are insignificant here. This is an appropriate calculator for meteors [2-3], including the effects of the actual blast (overpressure), not just heat. The documentation says windows are shattered at about 6,900 Pa (1 psi). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions [2] http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ [3] http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth (Flash)
olh 14y ago
Disregarding the 1000 tons meteor that blasted in the Amazon in 1930: http://star.arm.ac.uk/impact-hazard/Brazil.html http://star.arm.ac.uk/impact-hazard/Brazil.html
- uvdiv 14y ago
  This one was 7,000 tonnes (mass).
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ananyob 14y ago
NASA's just confirmed this story on their twitter feed. >>>@NASA #RussianMeteor is largest reported meteor since Tunguska event. Impact was at 3:20:26 UTC. Still being measured. More info to come.
pkfrank 14y ago
It's pretty fortuitous that so many folks in Russia have dashboard cams. I've got to think this is a meteor impact that has the most independent, distributed points of view that were dutifully recorded.
- cobrausn 14y ago
  Fortuitous for this, yes, but the reason why is somewhat unfortunate for Russia. http://jalopnik.com/why-russians-are-obsessed-with-dash-cams-5918159 http://jalopnik.com/why-russians-are-obsessed-with-dash-cams... EDIT: Just realized this was posted as a HN news item, probably from the original source. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227182 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227182
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  I'd love to see all those dashcam videos stitched together to make a tracking movie of the meteors whole route. Like NASCAR stationary cameras around a track can be stitched to appear to track with the cars.
prawks 14y ago
They keep saying explosion, I was under the impression that the sound was the sonic boom?
- drakeandrews 14y ago
  Russian state TV claims that the meteor was intercepted by an anti-ballistic missile system, which (if true) means the meteor was struck by a 10kt nuclear warhead.
  - nollidge 14y ago
    Source?
    - prawks 14y ago
      http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/15/russia-meteorite/1921991/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/15/russia-m... USA Today has a decently balanced assessment of the incident. Apparently Russia Today was "informed" of that. However the deputy prime minister has countered that by stating that "Russia does not have the capability to shoot down meteors." http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/ http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/ Russia Today claims that it was printed in the local paper.
      - uvdiv 14y ago
        Russia Today also describes the Tungaska meteor as "one of the most mysterious events in history" and suggests it was caused by space aliens [1]. [1] http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/ http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/ (today's http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224616 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224616)
    - drakeandrews 14y ago
      http://guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/15/hundreds-injured-meteorite-russian-city-chelyabinsk http://guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/15/hundreds-injured-met...
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cygwin98 14y ago
Thought I needed to mention the Tunguska event in 1908. It turned out it was already mentioned in the Nature article. Anyway, here is the wiki link to that event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event When I was a kid who was fascinated by UFO stuffs, that one was always speculated to be an explosion of an Alien spaceship.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  Or Tesla's weird experiments! There's speculation he somehow anticipated the event anyway.
  - cygwin98 14y ago
    Thanks for the tip. Didn't know that. Tesla was very likely an alien or time-traveler anyway.
speeder 14y ago
Now.we.know why we need meteor defense. If this rock ( that is.actually small ) ended hitting a 10 millions people city filled with glassy skyscrapers, what would happen? How many people.dead or in hospitals?
- jug6ernaut 14y ago
  Not to mention the infrastructure damage(not that i am belittling human damage). It would take years and billions of dollars to repair. Imagine every window in New York blowing out? The secondary damage would be much worse then primary.
  - erickhill 14y ago
    > Imagine every window in New York blowing out? Something like this actually happened in Ft. Worth back in 2000. It was caused by a tornado. Walking along the sidewalks afterwards was terrifying, as you never knew if a shard of glass might come swooshing down towards your head. They did, however, create several wooden structures like painter's scaffolding that you could walk under for protection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Fort_Worth_tornado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Fort_Worth_tornado It caused half a billion dollars in damage. But you really couldn't have prevented it. Minimized damage, debatable.
    - jug6ernaut 14y ago
      Wow! thats amazing/horrifying. Though i would have to imagine a meteor over New York(same strength earlier today) would be much worse, probably even a worse case scenario?(again for same strength). Meteors of this size your probably right, no easy way to prevent them. But i would not say that its impossible.
  - etcet 14y ago
    If this happened during the winter I imagine many would die of exposure.
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abcd_f 14y ago
Can anyone comment on why we don't have a handful satellites sprinkled with cameras pointing at all directions orbiting the Earth and feeding data down for analysis? Perhaps it's not much, but something is better than nothing. The excuse that this meteor wasn't spotted because it came from the sun side is laughable.
- paul_f 14y ago
  Sounds like a wonderful Kickstarter project. Seriously though, the cost/benefit ratio isn't worth it for detecting stuff this small. "Worst in 100 years" and there was virtually no damage.
  - svachalek 14y ago
    True. There are programs actively looking for larger objects though, that you can donate to if you're interested. This is the one that found 2012 DA14 which will be passing us shortly: http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/neo-grants/ http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/neo-grants/
- chakalakasp 14y ago
  There are a lot of asteroids in the Solar System. Millions. The solar system is huge. It's not laughable that this one wasn't seen - it was extremely tiny. Most asteroids that we can detect we do not have the technology to deflect unless we discover them decades before impact. Even then, deflecting them is all theoretical and would be a monumental technological undertaking, as it has never been attempted before.
nollidge 14y ago
They keep saying "explosion" but was there actually one? There was a sonic boom, and the rock disintegrated in the atmosphere, but I've not seen any evidence that it exploded all at once. EDIT: well, lots of news agencies are using the word "exploded", so maybe it did. I see somebody else mentioned claims that Russians shot at it, but I'm skeptical that they'd be able to notice and react to this thing in time. EDIT EDIT: OK so it looks like space rocks "airbursting" is not unheard of: [0]. Really curious what the physics of that involves. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_blast#Asteroid_airburst http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_blast#Asteroid_airburs...
- deleted 14y ago
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- svachalek 14y ago
  EDIT: Just saw Bill Nye explain this on the DA14 webcast from planetary.org. When the meteor hits the atmosphere at such a high velocity, it's like hitting a brick wall and it explodes on impact. Then the shock wave propagates to the ground as the fragments fall and oxidize.
  - alanfalcon 14y ago
    I think Randall Munroe did a decent job explaining the physics of things dropping from space here: http://what-if.xkcd.com/28/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/28/
  - pyre 14y ago
    IIRC, the meteor can also explode due to the core heating up from the atmospheric friction, though this depends on the make-up (materials, density, configuration) of the meteor.
- prawks 14y ago
  "Russia's deputy prime minister said Russia does not have the capability to shoot down meteors." http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/15/russia-meteorite/1921991/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/15/russia-m...
wglb 14y ago
We just have to live with it Or, alternatively, not.
- Florin_Andrei 14y ago
  "So, humans, how's that space program coming along?" - a large rock
31reasons 14y ago
Its interesting coincidence i suppose that there is going to be a close flyby of a near earth asteroid on Feb 15th. Even google changed their doodle to remind that (but the doodle is gone now!) Edit: Ah, its also in the news http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/02/asteroid-2012-da14-google-doodle-removed-after-russian-meteor-shower-injuries/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/02/asteroid-2012...
- yeison 14y ago
  Heh. I would've loved to see the article: 'Google Trolls Injured Russians with Doodle'
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
Does every car in Russia have a dashcam?
- asselinpaul 14y ago
  quite a few, in case of accidents/fights, they serve as proof. The police is apparently quite corrupt too so it might be an insurance...
orangethirty 14y ago
Nasa TV link for those who want to watch as they report. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
julieb612 14y ago
It's unfortunate this event is a wake up call. 99% of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are unknown. We at the B612 Foundation (http://b612foundation.org http://b612foundation.org) are building a telescope for early warning detection. Everyone can get involved. Please visit our site to learn more... you can help!
alanfalcon 14y ago
I'm reminded of scenes from Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" where rebelling Loonies plan to "throw rocks" at oppressive Earth.
Ingaz 14y ago
"Russian guy suffers the most" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RussianGuySuffersMost http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RussianGuySuffers... Universe agrees with it: Tunguska and "УФО" are both in Russia. I suppose that all other world can relax: something bad or REALLY BAD will go on head of "russkie" (It was a joke)
ravishk 14y ago
Are there certain geographies or areas that are more prone to these incidents than others? Countries in northern hemispheres for example? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhote-Alin_meteorite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhote-Alin_meteorite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patomskiy_crater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patomskiy_crater (Debatable meteorite origins)
- lutusp 14y ago
  > Are there certain geographies or areas that are more prone to these incidents than others? No. An incoming meteor or asteroid is perfectly ecumenical with respect to location, therefore the vast majority of meteors fall into the oceans. On a related note, the best time to see meteors is between midnight and dawn in whatever location you find yourself. The reason? At dawn, if you look straight up, you're looking in the direction Earth is moving in its orbit at thirty kilometers per second. By contrast, if you look straight up at sunset, you're looking at where Earth has just been and is receding from at thirty kilometers per second. Earth's velocity is added to that of the wandering space rocks near dawn, but is subtracted at sunset. The Russian meteor even happened at dawn.
bane 14y ago
Living in the country, there are lots of long boring drives where you mind wanders and you grow up very familiar with what a "shooting star" looks like streaking against the night sky. One day, driving home I happened to look out at something I thought was a plane and nearly drove off the road as I saw a meteroid falling silently through the sky. There was absolutely no sound and it moved much slower than I expected. After I regained control of my car and pulled it over to get out and watch, I saw small pieces silently broke away and the light show continued until it went over the horizon. It was totally unlike anything I'd ever seen before or since. It's dreamlike and beautiful. I waited a few minutes after it went below the horizon since the angle it went on made me think it might have made it to the ground, but I never heard anything. It was never in the news, and nobody talked about it afterwards, for all I know I'm the only one who ever saw it. It was both terrifying and amazing. I had no idea what I was looking at since it didn't look like any picture of this phenomenon I'd ever seen. One thing I'm sure of, is that I've never seen a video that ever does such a spectacle justice. There's so many subtle details that get completely obliterated on video. Here's some video that do a pretty good job of showing what they look like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWhrW7lpqZM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWhrW7lpqZM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyW0g1SIyxI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyW0g1SIyxI The videos of the one in Russia are on an entirely different scale. The sonic boom was tremendous, the amount of light being thrown off of that thing was unbelievable. Extrapolating from what I saw and how I now know video changes things, this must have been an unbelievable beautiful and terrifying sight.
- GuiA 14y ago
  Wow, those videos (and your story) are mindblowing. I wonder what must have gone through the minds of our ancestors when, hundreds or thousands of years ago, they'd witness such events (let alone ones similar to the Russian meteor). A lot of old creation myths etc. make a lot more sense now :)
- anovikov 14y ago
  Both of these videos are of the disintegrating reentering satellites, not meteors.
caf 14y ago
The CTBTO has a small release on the infrasound detection: http://newsroom.ctbto.org/2013/02/15/ctbto-infrasound-stations-detect-russian-meteorite-blast/ http://newsroom.ctbto.org/2013/02/15/ctbto-infrasound-statio...
Raz0rblade 14y ago
And there was no link to the other meteor that passed earth today ??. Or did Nasa coverup that it didnt knew what trajectory it would take. It seams unlikely to me that those two events are not related. I mean recently Nasa found some anomaly on Mars too, and then they say "no its not interesting its just erosion; (mars has next to none atmospheric pressure btw) i mean if i where a geologist, then any curious shape even if it was made by erosion would attract my attention i would take samples; and most likely such samples would be more interesting then dust-hole digging. What has become from NASA i wonder. Once they where explorers curious.. now they only call their device curiosity
chakalakasp 14y ago
Those videos look like space junk re entering the atmosphere, unless they are very much slowed down. Meteors tend move much quicker than that.

242 points by ananyob 14y ago

Isn't it quite a coincidence that the largest meteor impact since 1908 occurs just hours before the closest fly-by of a large asteroid in 100 years? Yet, NASA claims these two are unrelated.

ctdonath 14y ago
Word is they were going in different directions.
rwhitman 14y ago
Yea I find this curious as well, what are the odds of that happening? How many other chunks of rock could be heading our way right now that are too small to be spotted?
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > Yea I find this curious as well, what are the odds of that happening? About '1' apparently.
- smith234 14y ago
  Looks like we need something better to detect such kinds of occurances
joshuahedlund 14y ago
I'm very intrigued by this too. The consensus though seems to be that they came from completely different directions... here's a diagram that's making the rounds in Reddit[1]. It looks like this meteor landed in Russia hours before 2012DA14 even came close to being inside the moon's orbit, which makes it hard to imagine how one could have affected the other. [1] http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/Years/2013/February/images/Meteor5.png http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/Years/2013/February/i...
paul_f 14y ago
Simple really. The rock that landed in Russia was the one our alien protectors used to deflect DA14 from hitting the earth.
svachalek 14y ago
They are going in nearly opposite directions and are roughly a million miles apart from each other. Once you get a real idea of how empty space is (all of the not-to-scale diagrams you get in high school are no help here) it's harder to see how they could be related than not related. True random distributions just work that way. If something that's supposed to happen once in a hundred years is spaced out at roughly 100-year intervals, that's not random.
martinced 14y ago
I don't know but I do really hope that the one that hit Russia wasn't part of a smaller but faster one that did actually hit 2014-DA and change its course. Otherwise the northern emisphere is in trouble. I find that coincidence very, very weird too. And you gotta love all the people saying: "Nothing to see here, move along", as if they had themselves ran all the computation and knew for sure there was no relation between the two events.
- Florin_Andrei 14y ago
  Relax, it's unrelated. http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/Years/2013/February/images/Meteor5.png http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/html/Years/2013/February/i... Coincidences do happen once in a while.

ceejayoz 14y ago

Well, that we've noticed, at least.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
That is an interesting point, If this had travelled over one of the poles would we have noticed? I tend to think that someone would have seen it, but we wouldn't have a dozen dash cam videos of it.
- uvdiv 14y ago
  The infrasound detectors mentioned in the article can supposedly detect a 1-kiloton blast anywhere on earth [1] (page 15). This meteor was "hundreds of kilotons". http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/ISS_Publication/Infrasound_11-16.pdf http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/ISS_Publicati...
  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    Fascinating, thanks!
  - caf 14y ago
    That's true - we would detect it now. But the CTBTO International Monitoring System is a relatively new development (design and construction didn't start until 1997).
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    It also would show up on satellites that monitor for rocket launches and nuclear explosions. But whether or not the details would be released to the public is not entirely certain.
manojlds 14y ago
Did you read the article? That's what it says - A meteor that exploded over Russia this morning was the largest recorded object to strike the Earth

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Nice coverage. I especially like the infrasound analysis. The estimate of 100kT explosion suggests this thing was an order of magnitude scarier in person than it was on video, and it was pretty damn scary on video.

free652 14y ago
I believe the explosion was much higher in altitude somewhere between 6 to 30 miles, so video only captured the fragments of the asteroid.
damoncali 14y ago
So Fat Man and Little Boy were approx 15-20 kT. Is that apples to apples? If so, holy crap.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Ground Zero allows you to pick a place and a bomb and nuke an area. Unfortunately it hops from 21 kT to 400 kT, but still. (http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html)
  - drakeandrews 14y ago
    Nuke Map allows you to enter the yield of your choice. http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
  - uvdiv 14y ago
    This is actually completely useless since these explosions are far closer to the earth -- probably between 100 meters and 1 km altitude [1], vs. 10-30 km estimates for this meteor. Also, it only shows thermal radiation effects, which are insignificant here. This is an appropriate calculator for meteors [2-3], including the effects of the actual blast (overpressure), not just heat. The documentation says windows are shattered at about 6,900 Pa (1 psi). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions [2] http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ [3] http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth (Flash)

olh 14y ago

Disregarding the 1000 tons meteor that blasted in the Amazon in 1930: http://star.arm.ac.uk/impact-hazard/Brazil.html http://star.arm.ac.uk/impact-hazard/Brazil.html

uvdiv 14y ago
This one was 7,000 tonnes (mass).

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ananyob 14y ago

NASA's just confirmed this story on their twitter feed. >>>@NASA #RussianMeteor is largest reported meteor since Tunguska event. Impact was at 3:20:26 UTC. Still being measured. More info to come.

pkfrank 14y ago

It's pretty fortuitous that so many folks in Russia have dashboard cams. I've got to think this is a meteor impact that has the most independent, distributed points of view that were dutifully recorded.

cobrausn 14y ago
Fortuitous for this, yes, but the reason why is somewhat unfortunate for Russia. http://jalopnik.com/why-russians-are-obsessed-with-dash-cams-5918159 http://jalopnik.com/why-russians-are-obsessed-with-dash-cams... EDIT: Just realized this was posted as a HN news item, probably from the original source. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227182 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227182
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
I'd love to see all those dashcam videos stitched together to make a tracking movie of the meteors whole route. Like NASCAR stationary cameras around a track can be stitched to appear to track with the cars.

prawks 14y ago

They keep saying explosion, I was under the impression that the sound was the sonic boom?

drakeandrews 14y ago
Russian state TV claims that the meteor was intercepted by an anti-ballistic missile system, which (if true) means the meteor was struck by a 10kt nuclear warhead.
- nollidge 14y ago
  Source?
  - prawks 14y ago
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/15/russia-meteorite/1921991/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/15/russia-m... USA Today has a decently balanced assessment of the incident. Apparently Russia Today was "informed" of that. However the deputy prime minister has countered that by stating that "Russia does not have the capability to shoot down meteors." http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/ http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/ Russia Today claims that it was printed in the local paper.
    - uvdiv 14y ago
      Russia Today also describes the Tungaska meteor as "one of the most mysterious events in history" and suggests it was caused by space aliens [1]. [1] http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/ http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/ (today's http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224616 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5224616)
  - drakeandrews 14y ago
    http://guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/15/hundreds-injured-meteorite-russian-city-chelyabinsk http://guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/15/hundreds-injured-met...

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cygwin98 14y ago

Thought I needed to mention the Tunguska event in 1908. It turned out it was already mentioned in the Nature article. Anyway, here is the wiki link to that event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event When I was a kid who was fascinated by UFO stuffs, that one was always speculated to be an explosion of an Alien spaceship.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Or Tesla's weird experiments! There's speculation he somehow anticipated the event anyway.
- cygwin98 14y ago
  Thanks for the tip. Didn't know that. Tesla was very likely an alien or time-traveler anyway.

speeder 14y ago

Now.we.know why we need meteor defense. If this rock ( that is.actually small ) ended hitting a 10 millions people city filled with glassy skyscrapers, what would happen? How many people.dead or in hospitals?

jug6ernaut 14y ago
Not to mention the infrastructure damage(not that i am belittling human damage). It would take years and billions of dollars to repair. Imagine every window in New York blowing out? The secondary damage would be much worse then primary.
- erickhill 14y ago
  > Imagine every window in New York blowing out? Something like this actually happened in Ft. Worth back in 2000. It was caused by a tornado. Walking along the sidewalks afterwards was terrifying, as you never knew if a shard of glass might come swooshing down towards your head. They did, however, create several wooden structures like painter's scaffolding that you could walk under for protection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Fort_Worth_tornado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Fort_Worth_tornado It caused half a billion dollars in damage. But you really couldn't have prevented it. Minimized damage, debatable.
  - jug6ernaut 14y ago
    Wow! thats amazing/horrifying. Though i would have to imagine a meteor over New York(same strength earlier today) would be much worse, probably even a worse case scenario?(again for same strength). Meteors of this size your probably right, no easy way to prevent them. But i would not say that its impossible.
- etcet 14y ago
  If this happened during the winter I imagine many would die of exposure.
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abcd_f 14y ago

Can anyone comment on why we don't have a handful satellites sprinkled with cameras pointing at all directions orbiting the Earth and feeding data down for analysis? Perhaps it's not much, but something is better than nothing. The excuse that this meteor wasn't spotted because it came from the sun side is laughable.

paul_f 14y ago
Sounds like a wonderful Kickstarter project. Seriously though, the cost/benefit ratio isn't worth it for detecting stuff this small. "Worst in 100 years" and there was virtually no damage.
- svachalek 14y ago
  True. There are programs actively looking for larger objects though, that you can donate to if you're interested. This is the one that found 2012 DA14 which will be passing us shortly: http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/neo-grants/ http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/neo-grants/
chakalakasp 14y ago
There are a lot of asteroids in the Solar System. Millions. The solar system is huge. It's not laughable that this one wasn't seen - it was extremely tiny. Most asteroids that we can detect we do not have the technology to deflect unless we discover them decades before impact. Even then, deflecting them is all theoretical and would be a monumental technological undertaking, as it has never been attempted before.

nollidge 14y ago

They keep saying "explosion" but was there actually one? There was a sonic boom, and the rock disintegrated in the atmosphere, but I've not seen any evidence that it exploded all at once. EDIT: well, lots of news agencies are using the word "exploded", so maybe it did. I see somebody else mentioned claims that Russians shot at it, but I'm skeptical that they'd be able to notice and react to this thing in time. EDIT EDIT: OK so it looks like space rocks "airbursting" is not unheard of: [0]. Really curious what the physics of that involves. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_blast#Asteroid_airburst http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_blast#Asteroid_airburs...

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svachalek 14y ago
EDIT: Just saw Bill Nye explain this on the DA14 webcast from planetary.org. When the meteor hits the atmosphere at such a high velocity, it's like hitting a brick wall and it explodes on impact. Then the shock wave propagates to the ground as the fragments fall and oxidize.
- alanfalcon 14y ago
  I think Randall Munroe did a decent job explaining the physics of things dropping from space here: http://what-if.xkcd.com/28/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/28/
- pyre 14y ago
  IIRC, the meteor can also explode due to the core heating up from the atmospheric friction, though this depends on the make-up (materials, density, configuration) of the meteor.
prawks 14y ago
"Russia's deputy prime minister said Russia does not have the capability to shoot down meteors." http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/15/russia-meteorite/1921991/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/02/15/russia-m...

wglb 14y ago

We just have to live with it Or, alternatively, not.

Florin_Andrei 14y ago
"So, humans, how's that space program coming along?" - a large rock

31reasons 14y ago

Its interesting coincidence i suppose that there is going to be a close flyby of a near earth asteroid on Feb 15th. Even google changed their doodle to remind that (but the doodle is gone now!) Edit: Ah, its also in the news http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/02/asteroid-2012-da14-google-doodle-removed-after-russian-meteor-shower-injuries/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/02/asteroid-2012...

yeison 14y ago
Heh. I would've loved to see the article: 'Google Trolls Injured Russians with Doodle'

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

Does every car in Russia have a dashcam?

asselinpaul 14y ago
quite a few, in case of accidents/fights, they serve as proof. The police is apparently quite corrupt too so it might be an insurance...

orangethirty 14y ago

Nasa TV link for those who want to watch as they report. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

julieb612 14y ago

It's unfortunate this event is a wake up call. 99% of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are unknown. We at the B612 Foundation (http://b612foundation.org http://b612foundation.org) are building a telescope for early warning detection. Everyone can get involved. Please visit our site to learn more... you can help!

alanfalcon 14y ago

I'm reminded of scenes from Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" where rebelling Loonies plan to "throw rocks" at oppressive Earth.

Ingaz 14y ago

"Russian guy suffers the most" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RussianGuySuffersMost http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RussianGuySuffers... Universe agrees with it: Tunguska and "УФО" are both in Russia. I suppose that all other world can relax: something bad or REALLY BAD will go on head of "russkie" (It was a joke)

ravishk 14y ago

Are there certain geographies or areas that are more prone to these incidents than others? Countries in northern hemispheres for example? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhote-Alin_meteorite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhote-Alin_meteorite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patomskiy_crater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patomskiy_crater (Debatable meteorite origins)

lutusp 14y ago
> Are there certain geographies or areas that are more prone to these incidents than others? No. An incoming meteor or asteroid is perfectly ecumenical with respect to location, therefore the vast majority of meteors fall into the oceans. On a related note, the best time to see meteors is between midnight and dawn in whatever location you find yourself. The reason? At dawn, if you look straight up, you're looking in the direction Earth is moving in its orbit at thirty kilometers per second. By contrast, if you look straight up at sunset, you're looking at where Earth has just been and is receding from at thirty kilometers per second. Earth's velocity is added to that of the wandering space rocks near dawn, but is subtracted at sunset. The Russian meteor even happened at dawn.

bane 14y ago

Living in the country, there are lots of long boring drives where you mind wanders and you grow up very familiar with what a "shooting star" looks like streaking against the night sky. One day, driving home I happened to look out at something I thought was a plane and nearly drove off the road as I saw a meteroid falling silently through the sky. There was absolutely no sound and it moved much slower than I expected. After I regained control of my car and pulled it over to get out and watch, I saw small pieces silently broke away and the light show continued until it went over the horizon. It was totally unlike anything I'd ever seen before or since. It's dreamlike and beautiful. I waited a few minutes after it went below the horizon since the angle it went on made me think it might have made it to the ground, but I never heard anything. It was never in the news, and nobody talked about it afterwards, for all I know I'm the only one who ever saw it. It was both terrifying and amazing. I had no idea what I was looking at since it didn't look like any picture of this phenomenon I'd ever seen. One thing I'm sure of, is that I've never seen a video that ever does such a spectacle justice. There's so many subtle details that get completely obliterated on video. Here's some video that do a pretty good job of showing what they look like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWhrW7lpqZM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWhrW7lpqZM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyW0g1SIyxI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyW0g1SIyxI The videos of the one in Russia are on an entirely different scale. The sonic boom was tremendous, the amount of light being thrown off of that thing was unbelievable. Extrapolating from what I saw and how I now know video changes things, this must have been an unbelievable beautiful and terrifying sight.

GuiA 14y ago
Wow, those videos (and your story) are mindblowing. I wonder what must have gone through the minds of our ancestors when, hundreds or thousands of years ago, they'd witness such events (let alone ones similar to the Russian meteor). A lot of old creation myths etc. make a lot more sense now :)
anovikov 14y ago
Both of these videos are of the disintegrating reentering satellites, not meteors.

caf 14y ago

The CTBTO has a small release on the infrasound detection: http://newsroom.ctbto.org/2013/02/15/ctbto-infrasound-stations-detect-russian-meteorite-blast/ http://newsroom.ctbto.org/2013/02/15/ctbto-infrasound-statio...

Raz0rblade 14y ago

And there was no link to the other meteor that passed earth today ??. Or did Nasa coverup that it didnt knew what trajectory it would take. It seams unlikely to me that those two events are not related. I mean recently Nasa found some anomaly on Mars too, and then they say "no its not interesting its just erosion; (mars has next to none atmospheric pressure btw) i mean if i where a geologist, then any curious shape even if it was made by erosion would attract my attention i would take samples; and most likely such samples would be more interesting then dust-hole digging. What has become from NASA i wonder. Once they where explorers curious.. now they only call their device curiosity

chakalakasp 14y ago

Those videos look like space junk re entering the atmosphere, unless they are very much slowed down. Meteors tend move much quicker than that.