Meteorite enters atmosphere over Russia

[CodeRedR51]

Just saw the video, didn't believe it, googled it for news releases and it IS real. Definitely crazy since the big one will be flying by tomorrow.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/meteorite-hits-russia-official-20130215-2ei2j.html

(Edit: WARNING - VIDEO IS LOUD)




Update: A piece of it hit a warehouse and caused quite a bit of damage. I've also seen photos of several buildings in the area with broken windows.

 

[niky]

They missed Putin by a mile.

Stupid Capitalist American secret weapon...

 

[CodeRedR51]

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

This is interesting:

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 to pieces at an altitude of 20 kilometers.

Edit: Anyone else find it weird that there's 2 smoke trails?

 

[niky]

Not really. If the meteor fragments and a number of the fragments are relatively large, they'll stay on the same course. Through the second video, it seems like the meteorite shatters (missile hit?) and small pieces come off, while the main body continues on the same course.

 

[CodeRedR51]

This video is interesting in that it looks like the meteor has come and gone, and there's a seriously late sonic boom(?) that follows @ :27.

 

[mattythedog]

This is pretty cool. Some of the dashcam videos show it to be really bright, looks brighter than the sun.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Yeah the best place for it to enter the atmosphere and get caught on camera is certainly Russia.

 

[terminator363]

Wow, sucks for Chelyabinsk. They also had the nuclear incident at Mayak many years ago. That sonic boom was really loud.

Edit: Could it be a piece of asteroid 2012 DA14?

 

[The Bman]

In Soviet Russia, you hit asteroid?

 

[Sprite]

They missed Putin by a mile.

Stupid Capitalist American secret weapon...

Nahh

 

[The Bman]

 

[Wardez]

(Edit: WARNING - VIDEO IS LOUD)

GOD DAMN THAT WARNING WAS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH FOR MY DEAD EARS.

I'm wearing these:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006ZS5ATM/?tag=gtplanet-20

Holy **** dude, OWW

Here's some more awesome footage with the shockwaves:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b70_1360910617

And an awesome Youtube doubler link so you get two perspectives of it at the same time:
http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=h...eature=player_embedded&start2=&authorName=FAV

 

[Wardez]

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

This is interesting:



Edit: Anyone else find it weird that there's 2 smoke trails?

Laughably impossible. Just simple physics throws any shred of possibility of that happening way out the window.

No way the military shot that thing down. That meteorite would doing mach 5 at least in entry. And the kinetic and chemical energy of a SAM is laughable compared to a meteor this size.

Oops, meant to edit this in to my last post and hit reply by accident.

 

[Grayfox]

These are nothing but small fragments of the bigger one.

 

[Minty]

Laughably impossible. Just simple physics throws any shred of possibility of that happening way out the window.

No way the military shot that thing down. That meteorite would doing mach 5 at least in entry. And the kinetic and chemical energy of a SAM is laughable compared to a meteor this size.

Oops, meant to edit this in to my last post and hit reply by accident.

The idea wouldn't be to stop it. A solid missile impacting at Mach 4.5 would certainly be enough to at least break it down a bit. And don't underestimate humanities ability to hit their target, even at those insane speeds when we've already built tech that can keep up with it.

 

[Wardez]

Of course we can track such things and target them at those speeds, that's not the problem, it's the sheer, again, kinetic energy working against anything trying to get in its way. It would be like a fly hitting a jet's canopy.

 

[MSTER232]

In Soviet Russia, you hit asteroid?

In England: Asteriod scares you

In Soviet Russia: You scare asteriod

 

[Wardez]

Nahh, in Soviet Russia, space explore you.

 

[MSTER232]

Nahh, in Soviet Russia, space explore you.

👍👍👍👍

 

[G.T.Ace]

Wow that's frightening to say the least.
That dashboard video caused some goosebumps.

Looks like it started to break (start of the smoke trail) and exploded.
No sign of a missile though.

 

[Grayfox]

What is it with Russia and meteorites exploding?

Siberia 1908 a meteorite exploded and leveled a forest.

 

[Keef]

This video is interesting in that it looks like the meteor has come and gone, and there's a seriously late sonic boom(?) that follows @ :27.

It looks to me like contrails in the highest reaches of our atmosphere, probably starting lightly in the Thermosphere and gradually getting more intense at the atmosphere thickens until the meteorite burns up. I wouldn't say the sonic boom was late given that sound only travels about 5.5 miles in 27 seconds.

 

[Rich S]

Wow, sucks for Chelyabinsk. They also had the nuclear incident at Mayak many years ago. That sonic boom was really loud.

Edit: Could it be a piece of asteroid 2012 DA14?

I was wondering if it wasn't one of 2012 DA14's tiny moons so to speak. Dont know Astronomy at all, it will be interesting to see some commentary from the experts.

 

[Wardez]

Lots of awesome shots and video here:
http://zyalt.livejournal.com/722930.html

(the image toward the end is only posted for them saying it's an image being shot around as the crater resulting from this meteor, which isn't the case, it's actually the Door to Hell firepit in Derweze, Turkmenistan.)

It's probably not related to DA14:

https://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/302313851511271426

And this, from the article I linked above:

First of all, I do not think this is related in any way to the asteroid 2102 DA14! For one thing, this occurred about 16 hours before DA14 passes. At 8 kilometers per second that’s nearly half a million kilometers away from DA14. That puts it on a totally different orbit.
For another, from the lighting, time of day, and videos showing the rising Sun, it looks like this was moving mostly east-to-west. I may be off, but that’s how it looks. DA14 is approaching Earth from the south, so any fragment of that rock would also appear to move south-to-north.

And pieces did reach the ground:

 

[Rich S]

https://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/302313851511271426

Interesting debate. To me its seems like a massive coincidence to not be related in some way, are they saying it came from a diff direction in space?

 

[Wardez]

Just based on observation from the videos, he notes the direction, which is different than what DA14 is going to streak by on.

It was probably quite small, and therefore went undetected. DA14 has an estimated diameter of ~50 meters, this one was probably in the ~1m size range (but it's way too early to tell and there are a lot of variables) and as such just was too small to notice before it entered the atmosphere. Things like this happen from time to time, though this one is a bit more rare since it was bright, loud, and actually caused (thankfully minor) damage on the ground over a widespread area.

 

[Cano]

About 700 injured people, as of now. Damn.

 

[wfooshee]

It looks to me like contrails in the highest reaches of our atmosphere, probably starting lightly in the Thermosphere and gradually getting more intense at the atmosphere thickens until the meteorite burns up. I wouldn't say the sonic boom was late given that sound only travels about 5.5 miles in 27 seconds.

This.

As I was reading the thread I was thinking exactly this, that you have no idea how high up this thing is when it hits the atmosphere. We're not talking jetliner levels, we're talking nearly space.

Also, the breakup does not need missiles. It would come apart from stresses involved with the atmospheric impact.

Note that I used the words "hit" and "impact." After all, it's making a piece of rock luminesce from heat to something too bright for the camera to take in, while it's still almost in space. That's a pretty snazzy thing for air to do by itself.

 

[Sureboss]

Lots of awesome shots and video here:
http://zyalt.livejournal.com/722930.html

(the image toward the end is only posted for them saying it's an image being shot around as the crater resulting from this meteor, which isn't the case, it's actually the Door to Hell firepit in Derweze, Turkmenistan.)

It's probably not related to DA14:

https://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/302313851511271426

And this, from the article I linked above:


And pieces did reach the ground:

Do we know if that was caused by fragments or shockwave?

 

[Wardez]

This.

As I was reading the thread I was thinking exactly this, that you have no idea how high up this thing is when it hits the atmosphere. We're not talking jetliner levels, we're talking nearly space.

Also, the breakup does not need missiles. It would come apart from stresses involved with the atmospheric impact.

Note that I used the words "hit" and "impact." After all, it's making a piece of rock luminesce from heat to something too bright for the camera to take in, while it's still almost in space. That's a pretty snazzy thing for air to do by itself.

A lot of smaller meteorites do just burst before they even hit anything, but this one was big enough for a piece of it to still hit ground after it first exploded. If you watch different videos you'll here lots of smaller booms after the initial one.

@Sureboss
That picture was from a fragmented piece that actually hit through the roof of the building.

This is another shot right after impact:

This is what the shockwave did:

See more in the link I linked above already:
http://zyalt.livejournal.com/722930.html