VIDEO: Large meteorite caught on dash cameras in Russia
![still-youtube-potapow-614[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/still-youtube-potapow-6141.jpg?quality=83)
Image from RT video, see below.
People are a little jumpy with news of the close flyby of the asteroid 2012 DA14 tomorrow. This meteor actually hit and destroyed a building. make you wonder is this wasn’t a piece of 2012DA14 that was a fragment that got ejected from the main asteroid by some other deep space collision but was in a similar trajectory out ahead. If so, there may be more incidents like this. It may also be simply coincidence. [UPDATE: NASA has issue a statement on this, see below]
Story from the YouTube description, video follows.
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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.
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.
Photo from Twitter.com user @TimurKhorev
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 video suggests it was shot down by the Air Force, that’s now proven false. Word has it that there was an air burst at about 10,000 feet.
Here is another video showing the trail plume, you can hear the sonic boom, car alarms go off, and windows blown out. It is quite something:
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UPDATE: (via NASA’s spaceweather.com)
It is natural to wonder if this event has any connection to today’s record-setting flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14. NASA has issued the following statement:
“The trajectory of the Russian meteorite was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, making it a completely unrelated object. Information is still being collected about the Russian meteorite and analysis is preliminary at this point. In videos of the meteor, it is seen to pass from left to right in front of the rising sun, which means it was traveling from north to south. Asteroid DA14’s trajectory is in the opposite direction, from south to north.”
Liveleak.com channel covering meteorite videos (site where wierd videos are uploaded world-wide, although many news stories come from here now. warning about the site in general, anything can be on here).
http://www.liveleak.com/c/Meteorite_falls_in_Russia
This proves progress. 25 years ago none of us would have known about it – the “authorities”; east and west would have stayed silent, waiting for the other to say something first.
Well, I guess we scratch one doomsday scenario off the list. There’s apparently no reason to be concerned about a meteorite strike on a nuclear power being mistaken for a nuclear strike and thereby initiating WWIII. Can we set the clock back a minute or two, now?
I do not think it is a coincidence. Just last week, when the DA14 coverage started to ramp up, I was thinking about the orbit of this asteroid and how it has had a long time to accumulate a small cloud of nearby companions from minor collisions over the eons. I could be all wet, but I think analysis will show that the orbit of this meteorite, and that of DA14 are closely related.
That’ll be down to global warming/climate change/climate variability
Am I a bad person for wishing there was video of the impact at that building?
For people wondering why so many videos of this event were taken from vehicles, dash cams are very popular for accident insurance purposes. They’re now very inexpensive and miniaturized and can save you A LOT of money if you’re ever involved in an accident.
To ZootCadillac & the comments about missiles fired.
The 1st lesson in Missile School is: “What goes up, must come down”.
I don’t suppose we’ll learn of any collateral damage …………..
Sympathy to those killed/maimed by the asteroid’s impact damage, and, by the broken flying glass shards all along the sonic-boom corridor. And also, by drivers distracted by the spectacle.
In the US we get all of the world’s UFO landings. In Russia they get the asteroids. Let’s keep it that way. 🙂
Impressive. Sure don’t want to be on the end of an asteroid.
Got a new music centre yesterday … and listened to radio cameroon, and “good morning Australia” at 9pm. That blue my mind.
But seeing not one but dozens of videos of the meteorite … as it actually happened,… WOW!
If this was a “global warming” issue then it would be the main item on the BBC as it is so far it has taken a backseat to the “horse burger” scandal.
More empirical evidence that climate change is the biggest threat to life on earth? / sarc.
Lew Skannen says:
> So envious. Tungushka and now this. How cone the Russkis get all the best meteorites??
They are a very, very large target.
Why wasn’t this detected by NASA and some type of warning given?
Oh thats right, NASA was too over-occupied with their employee James Hansen being arrested outside the Whitehouse.
I’m reading that today’s asteroid flyby will come from the north, while last night’s Russia impact came from the south. If so, then either this is an interesting (or amazing) coincidence, or there are some really complex orbital mechanics at work for the Russia event to be a piece of 2012DA14.
Either way, it is definitely fascinating to see all of the video. I was especially impressed with the city traffic camera showing normal traffic, with a sudden bright glare showing what looks like a full day of solar shadows moving within seconds. I’m not sure the average human brain could make sense of that when it happened, I’m pretty sure my first thought would be FEAR, and involve the word “nuclear”. Heck, all it took was snow and ice tumbling off my new roof for the first time to make me think “earthquake”.
Apparently almost 300 apartment buildings had windows blown out, and that is NOT a minor thing when the temperature is -18C. No wonder they’re sending 20,000 relief workers into the area to help out. This is a serious incident, more so than seeing the first videos is revealing. Over 700 documented injuries so far, some serious, and judging by the videos of typical office interiors with people blown inward from the windows and doors slammed open, that was a complete shock! I can only imagine how serious this would have been if it had been Moscow, or New York or San Francisco that was right under the path.
I’m impressed with the relatively calm and measured reaction I saw on many of those videos. Not sure I wouldn’t have been running blindly and screaming. People shooting videos were pretty much unable to even hold their camera/phone when the shock wave hit!
Today I’m ordering a hidef camera for my car. For those who don’t get how ubiquitous those things are, go to youtube and search “crash compilation”. So many car “accidents” captured, first hand, in glorious high definition.
Sorry for the long post, I’ve kinda been up all night following this…
Canada almost got hit by a meteor in 1972, but it didn’t slow down below escape velocity and missed Earth. It remains an Apollo (Earth orbit crossing) asteroid. It was filmed as it passed over Utah, the first film of such an event, at least, the first made public.
It would have been amazingly bright had it brushed us at night.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WlCfuPrszU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Daylight_1972_Fireball
I wonder what the size of the meteorite was… Walnut sized? Softball?
Any astrophysicists want to hazard a guess?
t certainly does seem to e too much of a coincidence. I mean, after all, how often does the Earth get hit with a meteor of this size? In a military situation, this would be called “collateral damage.”
Oh yeah:
Meteoroid – small object wandering around a solar system.
Asteroid – bigger object that can/could be seen with a telescope.
Planetoid – even bigger, like Pluto. There may be official sizes, I haven’t checked.
Meteor – meteoroid or asteroid as it goes through an atmosphere and is heated to incandescence.
Meteorite – meteoroid on the ground and is now a rock.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279020/Moment-meteorite-exploded-sky-Russian-town-doctors-treat-500-people-injured-sonic-boom-shattered-windows.html
Interesting note in blue boxed section at bottom, “Half a million kilometers away, another asteroid is coming” (bold added):
So one of our favorite visiting “death by slightly elevated global warmth” prophets (posts here as “Phil.” aka “Phil-dot”) is now an authority on par with the European Space Agency.
Was Phil. promoted or has the ESA fallen that far? Wait, Phil. got first billing. Is he now more authoritative than the ESA?
It’s extremely unlikely that the building was hit. It rather collapsed due to the powerful sonic boom.
It seems that at least one piece landed on the Chebarkul lake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-82p73fTweE
It is wonderful having our modern technology to witness the traveler almost live. This is the stuff of childhood dreams about space adventure. I love it.
How do the media know it was impact from a meteorite and not a smallesh comet? Has someone seen the meteorite material?
John
“makes you wonder is this wasn’t a piece of 2012DA14 that was a fragment that got ejected from the main asteroid by some other deep space collision but was in a similar trajectory out ahead. If so, there may be more incidents like this. It may also be simply coincidence.”
Anthony: it’s just pure coincidence. The two objects (the asteroid this wvening and the Russian meteor this morning, are coming from totally opposites parts of the sky.
As I remember, there’s also a large amount of glass beneath a good portion of asia/polynesia from an airburst meteor. Thailand, vietnam, southern China, and Cambodia, about 800k years ago.
There was a documentary about the desert glass in Libya, specifically Tutankhamun’s Fireball. It mentions the later Asian fireball. In effect, it’s a local major extinction event, with far wider effects from thermal bloom, shock waves, and smoke.
Unfortunately, at this point, all of humanity’s eggs are in one basket, and there are members within that basket that want to not only keep it that way, but start breaking eggs for their own benefit, for personal power, fame, riches… and their own misanthropy.
“CNN anchor suggests meteor hurtling toward Earth could be a result of global warming”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2277529/CNN-anchor-suggests-meteor-hurtling-Earth-result-global-warming.html
That didn’t take long.
If this were a global warming phenomena, wouldn’t it be striking China or India since they are the main “polluters”?
/sarc