Russia Meteor explodes in the sky

[TINY]

Published on Feb 14, 2013
A series of explosions in the skies of Russia's Urals region, reportedly caused by a meteorite shower, has sparked panic in three major cities. Witnesses said that houses shuddered, windows were blown out and cellphones have stopped working.

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.

A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from space objects such as asteroids or comets, ranging in size from tiny to gigantic.

When a meteorite falls on Earth, passing through the atmosphere causes it to heat up and emit a trail of light, forming a fireball known as a meteor, or shooting or falling star.

A bright flash was seen in the Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and Sverdlovsk regions, Russia's Republic of Bashkiria and in northern Kazakhstan.

Up to 150 people sought medical attention as a result of the incident, according to the Russian Interior Ministry. No serious injuries have been reported, with most of the injuries caused by broken glass and minor concussions.

Lifenews tabloid said 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 city's Internet and mobile service.

The Emergency Ministry reported that 20,000 rescue workers are operating in the region. Three aircraft were deployed to survey the area and locate other possible impact locations.
Witnesses said the explosion was so loud that it seemed like an earthquake and thunder had struck at the same time, and that there were huge trails of smoke across the sky. Others reported seeing burning objects fall to earth.
Meteorite crash in Russia: UFO fears spark panic in the Urals
A series of explosions in the skies of Russia's Urals region, reportedly caused by a meteorite shower, has sparked panic in three major cities. Witnesses said that houses shuddered, windows were blown out and cellphones have stopped working.
Meteorite crash in Russia: UFO fears spark panic in the Urals
Another Tunguska event?


The incident in Chelyabinsk bears a strong resemblance to the 1908 Tunguska event -- an exceptionally powerful explosion in Siberia believed to have been caused by a fragment of a comet or meteor.

According to estimates, the energy of the Tunguska blast may have been as high as 50 megatons of TNT, equal to a nuclear explosion. Some 80 million trees were leveled over a 2,000-square-kilometer area. The Tunguska blast remains one of the most mysterious events in history, prompting a wide array of hypotheses on its cause, including a black hole passing through Earth and the wreck of an alien spacecraft.

It is believed that if the Tunguska event had happened 4 hours later, due to the rotation of the Earth it would have completely destroyed the city of Vyborg and significantly damaged St. Petersburg.




When a similar, though less powerful, unexplained explosion happened in Brazil in 1930, it was named the 'Brazilian Tunguska.' The Tunguska event also prompted debate and research into preventing or mitigating asteroid impacts.
Residents across the Urals region were informed about the incident through a cellphone text message from the regional Emergency Ministry.

Many locals reported that the explosion rattled their houses and smashed windows.
"This explosion, my ears popped, windows were smashed... phone doesn't work,"

Evgeniya Gabun wrote on Twitter.

"My window smashed, I am all shaking! Everybody says that a plane crashed," Twitter user Katya Grechannikova reported.

"My windows were not smashed, but I first thought that my house is being dismantled, then I thought it was a UFO, and my eventual thought was an earthquake," Bukreeva Olga wrote on Twitter.

The Mayak nuclear complex near the town of Ozersk was not affected by the incident, according to reports. Mayak, one of the world's biggest nuclear facilities that used to house plutonium production reactors and a reprocessing plant, is located 72 kilometers northwest of Chelyabinsk.

It is believed that the incident may be connected to asteroid 2012 DA14, which measures 45 to 95 meters in diameter and will be passing by Earth tonight at around 19:25 GMT at the record close range of 27,000 kilometers.
The regional Emergency Ministry said the phenomenon was a meteorite shower, but locals have speculated that it was a military fighter jet crash or a missile explosion.

"According to preliminary data, the flashes seen over the Urals were caused by [a] meteorite shower," the Emergency Ministry told Itar-Tass news agency.

The ministry also said that no local power stations or civil aircraft were damaged by the meteorite shower, and that "all flights proceed according to schedule."

 

[-b]

I watch a Documentary on the 1913 Meteor...It was very interesting.....
Amazing if it is the same one falling on the same day......

 

[God]

Russian meteorite: Why didn't scientists see it coming ?


On the same day that the world's scientists were polishing their telescopes in anticipation of asteroid 2012 DA124, a meteor broke apart over the Ural Mountains in Russia and rained down fire and debris -- reportedly injuring nearly 1,000 people. So why didn’t they see this one coming?

Apparently, size matters, explained Andrew Cheng of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
"It doesn’t take a very large object. A 10-meter size object already packs the same energy as a nuclear bomb," Cheng, who led a 2000-2001 mission for NASA to orbit and land on an asteroid, told FoxNews.com.

The Russian meteor -- estimated to be just 10 tons and 2 meters across -- entered the Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 33,000 mph and shattered about 18-32 miles above the ground. It released the energy of several kilotons above the Chelyabinsk region.

That’s relatively small compared with asteroid 2012 DA14, which will make the closest recorded pass of an asteroid to the Earth -- about 17,150 miles -- later today. And while NASA’s Near Earth Object Program and other skywatchers track thousands of larger asteroids like it, the countless smaller ones in the heavens are virtually impossible to locate.

“This thing is probably pretty small compared to DA14,” explained K.T. Ramesh, professor of science and engineering at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering and founding director of Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute.

“If you think about objects the size of the one that came into Russia, you’re probably looking at 100 million up there. Of those likely to intersect Earth, there’s less, maybe 100,000,” Ramesh told FoxNews.com. “Space is pretty big.”

Meteors are pieces of space rock, usually from larger comets or asteroids, which enter the Earth's atmosphere. Many burn up by the heat of the atmosphere; those that strike are called meteorites. And the damage caused by even a small meteorite impact is significant, as seen by the events in Russia.


Chelyabinsk health chief Marina Moskvicheva, said Friday that 985 people in her city had asked for medical assistance. The Interfax news agency quoted her as saying 43 were hospitalized.
While scientists scan the heavens frequently and keep track of millions of objects, Cheng said, they don't keep watch continually.

"Extending the searches to objects as small as this thing was will require some serious investment. Is it possible? Yes," he told FoxNews.com. And doing so is clearly important. The impact of a larger asteroid, such as 2012 DA14, would be far worse.

“DA14 -- if that were made of iron, it would get to the ground and cause a significant crater, likely take out a city,” Ramsesh told FoxNews.com. “Major impact events have the potential to create global catastrophes,” he said.
Ramesh says that it is hard to predict exactly what would happen to life as we know it if an asteroid were to suddenly slam into the surface of the Earth; the destruction would depend on both the asteroid itself as well as where it hits -- sea, land or urban environment.

To prevent such an event, his team at the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute has developed a computer model for the impact and disruption of asteroids to help protect against a planetary impact. And to start, we need to put more effort into tracking, especially smaller meteorites such as the Russian one.

“We’re getting reasonably good at the big objects. It’s the small ones we need to work on,” he told FoxNews.com.
And we need to know what they’re made of. Because the massive 2012 DA14 is made of stone, it would likely break up in the atmosphere rather than make it to Earth. Ramesh stressed the need for education as well.

There’s a real risk that someone doesn’t recognize this as a natural event and sees it as an attack from another country, he warned.
“My great fear is that you have two countries on the brink of war and something like this happens … and someone reacts to it,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

 

[Chevy]

 

[Chevy]

 

[FUKUMAN]

Bruce will save them.

[h=2]

[/h]

 

[Wise Guy]

Russia is blaming the States saying it wasn't a meteor but Testing their new weapons :unknw:

 

[Transient]

I would have thought that North Korea would have been the first in mind.