Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Meteor Over Russia, Feb. 15, 2013

Meteor Over Russia, Feb. 15, 2013

bfesser - 15-2-2013 at 08:18

<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-russia-meteorite-idUSBRE91E05Z20130215" target="_blank">Meteor explodes over central Russia, 500 people hurt</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />

[edit] It turns out, they found impact sites, making it a meteorite.

<a href="http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/" target="_blank">Meteorite hits Russian Urals: Fireball explosion wreaks havoc, over 900 injured (PHOTOS, VIDEO)</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />
<a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/15/russian-meteor-explained-videos-and-pictures-of-blast-and-crash-site/" target="_blank">Russian meteor explained: Videos and pictures of blast and crash site</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor" target="_blank">Chelyabinsk meteor</a> <img src="../scipics/_wiki.png" />

<a href="http://www.reuters.com/video/2013/02/15/hundreds-injured-as-meteor-hits-central?videoId=241140683" target="_blank">Hundreds injured as meteor hits central Russia</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />
<a href="http://youtu.be/1kvHl5Qcnzc" target="_blank">Dramatic CCTV: Meteorite blast wave blows out doors, windows in Russia</a> <img src="../scipics/_yt.png" />
<a href="http://youtu.be/90Omh7_I8vI" target="_blank">Meteor crash in Russia, 1500 people injured!! Ural, Chelyabinsk! New Video Part 4</a> <img src="../scipics/_yt.png" />
<a href="http://youtu.be/Np_mpGYSBSA" target="_blank">Взрыв в челябинске</a> <img src="../scipics/_yt.png" /> ("Explosion in Chelyabinsk")

<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9873053/Graphic-Russian-meteor-impact-explained.html" target="_blank">Graphic: Russian meteor impact explained:</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />

[Edited on 27.2.14 by bfesser]

Endimion17 - 15-2-2013 at 12:27

I saw the news this morning (UTC+1) and then went to bed. I see there have not been any new confirmed impacts.

These things usually come with sort of a coma of other, much smaller debris.
I recommend you to check out the skies tonight. I will. We might experience a real powerful meteor shower. You never know.

The zinc factory was not hit by debris. It was blasted by the detonation wave, and because it's a large factory, it's easy to crumble and push its large surfaces on the roof.

There is no way anyone could've predicted this, as we stumbled upon it from the direction of Sun.
Every now and then these things impact Earth, but most of them detonate above the ocean surfaces and no one ever gets to see them personally. This time, it happened above a populated area. :/

bfesser - 15-2-2013 at 16:04

I regularly check the <a href="http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/mobile/" target="_blank">USGS mobile seismicity</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" /> listing from my cell phone for any interesting activity—today there's a <a href="http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000f7rz#summary" target="_blank">magnitude 0 entry</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" /> for the meteor event.

<img src="http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/files/2013/02/Seismograph-Reading-Russia-Meteor.jpg" width="800" />
Source: <a href="http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/what-if-a-meteorite-struck-the-united-states/?from=image" target="_blank">What if a Meteorite Struck the United States?</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />

Sorry for repeatedly posting on this subject, but this sort of thing really excites me.

[Edited on 7/9/13 by bfesser]

starman - 15-2-2013 at 17:15

Funny how we have a tracked NEO event concomitant with this.News stories are running back to back and nobody makes the leap that this is a halo co-traveller.

bfesser - 15-2-2013 at 17:42

Just coincidence. The trajectory (among other things) rules this possibility out. See above.

starman - 15-2-2013 at 17:55

I stand corrected.Hell of a coincidence.

Endimion17 - 15-2-2013 at 19:09

No, it's not really a hell of a coincidence. There is a ton of these small fuckers shooting everywhere. To approximate, every month a car sized lump of ice detonates in the atmosphere. Every few months a rocky/metallic car sized lump does the same. Every few years a lump the size of this one in Russia detonates somewhere.

They fall all the time, but they aren't witnessed because most of Earth is desolate.

The coincidence is not in the fact this event happened when there was an unrelated asteroid passing by, the coincidence is that is happened over a populated area.

When I think how many these impossible to notice lumps are whizzing everywhere, I get a little paranoid, honestly.
It just shows how "unfinished" our Solar system really is, and how scary it was during the geological past.

Endimion17 - 16-2-2013 at 03:25

Looks like we have another one in Cuba, but it's not confirmed whether it's connected to KEF-2013.
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/suspected-meteor-explosion-repo...

franklyn - 16-2-2013 at 19:04

First the Pope quits - never happened before.
Next lightning strikes the Vatican.
Now this evil portent. The sky is falling !
It's the end of the world I tell you.

.

bfesser - 17-2-2013 at 11:19

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/16/russian-meteor...
I'm highly suspicious of the validity of these latest two supposed meteor events.

Follow-up article (link courtesy franklin via U2U): http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/16/us-russia-meteorit...

Reuters video footage compilation: http://www.reuters.com/video/2013/02/15/incredible-amateur-v...

[Edited on 2/17/13 by bfesser]

Endimion17 - 17-2-2013 at 12:01

So some equipment failed to register the bolide? That's interesting. Perhaps the stuff in Cuba indeed was a disinformation. I'm surprised Cuban astronomers haven't said anything. After all, pretty much every country nowdays has meteor monitoring systems.

It's funny how the politicians and the clergy immediately starts ranting about an "attack" and "act of god"... just to remind us again who's the scum in charge.

Quote: Originally posted by franklyn

First the Pope quits - never happened before.
Next lightning strikes the Vatican.
Now this evil portent. The sky is falling !
It's the end of the world I tell you.

.

Actually, it did happen before. Several popes have resigned, though the last resignation happened a couple of hundreds of years ago.

The lightning strikes the Saint Peter's basilica every now and then, just like it strikes other buildings in Vatican.

I know you're joking, but I'm just saying it for the sake of people who don't know the facts...

It'll be awesome to see the faces of my local clerical fascists if the new pope happens to be black.
If he visits my country again, they're going to have to kiss his hand. Oh, lawdy... can't wait. XD

bfesser - 17-2-2013 at 12:44

Clarification for those who don't know what Endimion17 means by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolide" target="_blank">bolide</a> <img src="../scipics/_wiki.png" />; he's referring to the fireball of a meteor blasting through the atmosphere.

[Edited on 7/9/13 by bfesser]

Sedit - 18-2-2013 at 20:29

Cosmic coincidence my ass, I believe it to be a foolish thought when I first heard it now with the other recent bolide sightings all around the world that to me is proof positive they are connected to the passing asteroid.

Lets refresh here, I suppose to believe that in one week California,Saudi Arabia, Florida, Cuba, and Russian fireballs are all coincidences? I can't be the only one who finds this more then odd.

[edit]

I was just thinking. Has anyone considered that these may not be meteors at all... This thing past through our cloud of space junk twice. I don't find it to unlikely for it to have thrown some old satellites out of orbit and into our atmosphere. It seems more likely considering Bolides are generally metallic in composition because stone would burn up quickly.

[Edited on 19-2-2013 by Sedit]

watson.fawkes - 19-2-2013 at 06:15

Quote: Originally posted by Sedit

Lets refresh here, I suppose to believe that in one week California,Saudi Arabia, Florida, Cuba, and Russian fireballs are all coincidences? I can't be the only one who finds this more then odd.

This is a completely classic case of observation bias. Meteors go through the sky all time. Mostly they go by unremarked. With all the news coverage about the Russia strike, they get remarked upon. When the excitement fades, it'll go back to normal.

The American Meteor Society gathers observations: http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireball_event. Go on their site and see that there are regularly multiple events per day.

Endimion17 - 19-2-2013 at 08:18

Quote: Originally posted by Sedit

Cosmic coincidence my ass, I believe it to be a foolish thought when I first heard it now with the other recent bolide sightings all around the world that to me is proof positive they are connected to the passing asteroid.

Lets refresh here, I suppose to believe that in one week California,Saudi Arabia, Florida, Cuba, and Russian fireballs are all coincidences? I can't be the only one who finds this more then odd.

[edit]

I was just thinking. Has anyone considered that these may not be meteors at all... This thing past through our cloud of space junk twice. I don't find it to unlikely for it to have thrown some old satellites out of orbit and into our atmosphere. It seems more likely considering Bolides are generally metallic in composition because stone would burn up quickly.

[Edited on 19-2-2013 by Sedit]

2012 DA14 and KEF-2013 can not be related as they're coming from entirely different directions (which is a huge deal, an awesome proof they have no connection), and I'm not repeating what others say - I'm saying this as an amateur astronomer. You're having an observation bias.
Using your logic, every meteor and bolide we see these days is connected to 2012 DA14 and/or KEF-2013, and it isn't. One can only expect to see a temporary increase in meteor activity from one region of the sky and conclude there is a probable causative connection.

What exactly passed through our cloud of space junk? 2012 DA14 or KEF-2013? The latter came out of nowhere, undetected.
Either way, the probability of a direct collision with an artificial satellite is ridiculously small even for relatively huge asteroids that could zoom through the densest part of artificial objects' field. The distances and the speeds are enormous for a random pass to result in a collision.
Yet sometimes collisions can occur if the bodies are in close orbits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision

Remnants of the KEF-2013 are being found all over the region and the analysis shows ~10% metallic content. The name "bolide" suggests a very bright meteor, not neccessarily metallic, and the white vapor trail seen over Chelyabinsk indicates a large percentage of stone.

bfesser - 19-2-2013 at 10:15

Sedit, several organizations around the world track every satellite, nut, bolt, and paperclip of artificial junk humans have left in orbit. If any of it had been knocked out of place, they'd likely know about it.

Quote:

Currently about 19,000 pieces of debris larger than 5 cm are tracked, with another 300,000 pieces smaller than 1 cm below 2000 km altitude. For comparison, ISS orbits in the 300–400 km range and both the 2009 collision and 2007 antisat test events occurred at between 800–900 km

Source: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris#Tracking_and_measurement" target="_blank">Space Debris</a> <img src="../scipics/_wiki.png" />

Fascinating article (sorta unrelated): <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome" target="_blank">Kessler Syndrome</a> <img src="../scipics/_wiki.png" />

[Edited on 7/9/13 by bfesser]

Sedit - 19-2-2013 at 16:17

They track it because they know the orbit... However the orbits would have been thrown off and they wouldn't really know this just yet. Especially if it was dead and no longer transmitting.

Sedit - 19-2-2013 at 16:19

Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17

Understand they came from a different direction. I have been looking at the data they have been providing. However if the object was knocked out of orbit of the earth it would not instantly fall meaning it could be associated with it without being near it at the time.

bfesser - 19-2-2013 at 16:48

Why invoke a more complicated explanation when none is needed? Earth is constantly bombarded by meteors and meteorites. It's just that the media has decided it's something of interest at the moment, so you're hearing about it a lot more than usual.

Sedit - 19-2-2013 at 17:15

Because these things are behaving like Irony meteors or some sort of metal that's why I'm suggesting my hypothesis because I don't agree with the current theory.

bfesser - 20-2-2013 at 08:50

Sedit: Fair enough.

Endimion17, you said that they've found some fragments of KEF-2013 with approximately 10% metallic composition. Could you please post some links?

Endimion17 - 20-2-2013 at 12:16

Quote: Originally posted by Sedit

Are you saying KEF-2013 was Earth's satellite? Or Earth's quasi-satellite? Because either way, it's highly improbable and also impossible to prove, and Occam's razor suggests that it's a random collision because it came from a totally different direction, and the possibility of it KEF-2013 being a part of 2012 DA14's flock that somehow got pounded by something (what?) is even less probable because there'd have to be two improbable events.

Have you ever properly watched a meteor shower? Midnight till dawn. There are meteors coming from the radiant (let's say it's August and Perseids are being watched) in constellation Perseus, and there are random meteors called sporadic meteors coming from random directions. Let's say Perseids go at 60 per minute, and sporadics go at 0.2 per minute. If you watch the sky the whole night, you have a somewhat decent chance of seeing a Perseid shooting from the radiant few seconds before or after a sporadic comes from anywhere else, going in a random, possibly opposite direction. I've seen, on several instances, radiant meteors occuring +/- 0.5 second when a sporadic streaks the sky. Does that say they're connected? Of course not.

It's similar to observing natural background radiation with a simple counter. You can't tell if it came from space or that few plutonium atoms on your desk or it came from a 14CO2 molecule you exhaled few seconds ago. You can only express the probability of such events, and then back it up with lots of data sampling etc.

Quote: Originally posted by Sedit

Because these things are behaving like Irony meteors or some sort of metal that's why I'm suggesting my hypothesis because I don't agree with the current theory.

KEF-2013 behaved like a piece of stone. It disintegrated high in the atmosphere (~30 km) and its trail was white. A metallic one, having the same mass, would probably reach the ground, or at least its air burst would be at a much lower altitude. This one detonated releasing energy equivalent of around 0.5 MT of TNT. Imagine that at <2 km height. Chelyabinsk would probably be in ruins. The flash would cause instant fires and the blast would tear down lots of buildings. Lots of burn victims and lots of deaths.
Not to mention political implications. Those fuckers would just wait to declare a war, no matter what country they come from.

Quote: Originally posted by bfesser

Endimion17, you said that they've found some fragments of KEF-2013 with approximately 10% metallic composition. Could you please post some links?

I don't have any official news (it's hard when it's all in Cyrillic) but it's in the media, for example:
http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_18/Fragments-meteorite-found-...

Sedit - 20-2-2013 at 19:32

Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17

It could have been a number of things. First of all the Earth to few people knowledge has a ring around it similar to Saturn just very faint and it also has another "Moon" which is a cloud of debris possibly left over from the creation of our moon. Gravitational disturbance from this thing passing through near earth debris beit man made or natural would have disrupted the other wise stable orbit of these materials. I believe this is the reason we are seeing so many Bolides in such a short period of time that directly coincides with the event of this asteroid passing through these debris clouds.

Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17

Have you ever properly watched a meteor shower? Midnight till dawn. There are meteors coming from the radiant (let's say it's August and Perseids are being watched) in constellation Perseus, and there are random meteors called sporadic meteors coming from random directions. Let's say Perseids go at 60 per minute, and sporadics go at 0.2 per minute. If you watch the sky the whole night, you have a somewhat decent chance of seeing a Perseid shooting from the radiant few seconds before or after a sporadic comes from anywhere else, going in a random, possibly opposite direction. I've seen, on several instances, radiant meteors occuring +/- 0.5 second when a sporadic streaks the sky. Does that say they're connected? Of course not.

I seen the Aurora during one of its peeks when I was 9 years old. I studied astronomy so much after that its not even funny. This is what really set off my interest in science at a young age. That should give you a little background into my incite into the matter. I love astronomy and rarely miss a major meteor shower

Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17

It's similar to observing natural background radiation with a simple counter. You can't tell if it came from space or that few plutonium atoms on your desk or it came from a 14CO2 molecule you exhaled few seconds ago. You can only express the probability of such events, and then back it up with lots of data sampling etc.

I'm not saying its impossible for it to be random however it seems so highly unlikely I can't even begin to fathom it.

Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17

Many reported a blue green glow at first before it got to bright and washed out. This is an indication of an object of metallic origin. A man made object would not survive like an irony meteor would because of density and would more then likely fall apart or explode a lot sooner then a normal metallic meteor would.

These are just hypothesis and until test come back on fragments(from multiple incidences not only Russia) if indeed some are found we really won't know the whole story.

DerAlte - 20-2-2013 at 21:31

OK, let’s do a little calculation. Media quotes are all over the place regarding estimated numbers. I am going to work from the basis that the estimated mass of the the bolide was 10,000 tonnes. All units MKS/SI.

Meteors have a speed range from about 28km/s to about 72km/s. The difference is due to the earth’s orbital speed, about 30km/s, and whether the meteor approach was with,against, or orthogonal to this velocity, plus it’s actual velocity WRT a fixed point in space. So, taking a modest figure of 40km/s seems reasonable. (SEE below: quoted NASA est. is higher, 74 km/s, unusually high)

The mass energy equivalent m to the meteor’s KE can easily be estimated. Let the mass of the meteor be M, and the earth approach speed be v: (1/2)Mv^2 = mc^2 = KE of the meteor. So here we have KE = (10E6*(40E3)^2)/2 = 8E15Joules. (The mass equiv. of this energy would then be ~8E15/(300E6^2) kg = 8.9E-2kg = 89g!)

Since 1megaton TNT releases about 4E15J, such a meteor mass would release about 2MT, surely too high.

FUX News: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/19/russian-meteor-was... : Size est 10,000 ton

ABC News:

Quote:

MOSCOW, Feb. 15, 2013
More than 1,200 people were injured when a massive meteor broke apart above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk today, raining burning bits of rock over the city that shattered windows and caused a panic……

CHELYABINSK, Russia, Feb. 16, 2013
According to NASA, this was the biggest meteor to hit Earth in more than a century. Preliminary figures suggest it was 50 feet wide and weighed more than the Eiffel Tower.
NASA scientists have also estimated the force of the blast that occurred when the meteor fractured upon entering Earth's atmosphere was approximately 470 kilotons -- the equivalent of about 30 Hiroshima bombs.
Authorities have sent divers into a frozen lake outside the city, where a large chunk of the meteor is believed to have landed, creating a large hole in the ice. By the end of the day they had not found anything.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/russian-meteor-scientist... CHEBARKUL, Russia, Feb. 17, 2013

The fragments were found on the edge of a giant hole in a frozen lake in this tiny village, thought to have been created when a sizable chunk space rock came crashing down, RIA Novosti reported.

The meteor was travelling at 46,000 mph when it hit the Earth's atmosphere and exploded, according to new data from Paul Abell at the Johnson Space Center.

…. Taking the NASA est. of 50ft wide = 15.24m, and assuming a spherical shape (for the least mass – an elongated ellipsoid would have a greater) R=7.62m gives a volume 4πR^3/3 = 1853m3 and assuming density = 2.5 tonne/m^3 for a stony meteor, a mass of ~4633 tonnes.

Taking the quoted NASA est. of about 74 km/s and their estimate of 470 KT = E = 4.2*470*10E12joules = 1.97E15 joules, M = 2E/v^2 = 2*1.97E15/(74E3)^2 = ~ 720 tonne.

Either I am making errors of computation (quite likely) or the media is full of BS (extremely likely) and not reporting NASA correctly, or there is a lot of handwaving going on (also likely).

It strikes me that a nuclear blast of 500KT over a town would cause much more damage than breaking a few windows but that’s just a gut feel, since the height of the burst is not specified. The lake revealed no meteor debris – so far. It was quoted to be ‘in the village’. Whole lot of BS going on?….
……

WRT sporadic meteors, my personal experience over about 20 yrs. of astronomical observation is the one typically saw about one per 2hr. session at the scope. To notice a sporadic it has to be about mag. 1 to be visible within one’s FOV, given night adaptation of the eye. Fireballs (> -5 mag.) were more common as sporadics than in showers. What the Russian magnitude was I have seen no estimate, but IIRC the moon is –21 mag. And it looks a lot brighter than that in the photos.

Der Alte

Endimion17 - 20-2-2013 at 22:10

Quote: Originally posted by Sedit

Exactly, every planet has some junk orbiting it, it's only a matter of quantity. With our natural satellite so huge this amount is probably rather low. But they must exist.
2012 DA14 is roughly 28 metres (mean diameter) wide with around 44 kilotons of mass. If I did my calculations correctly, an man of average weight (70 kg) standing on its surface (15 m away from the center) would be pulled by a force of around 0.00083 N. That's negligible. The man could probably reach his escape velocity by simply pushing a button on a calculator strapped to the asteroid.

Consider that KEF-2013 (~10 kT mass) impacted the atmosphere around 16 hours before 2012 DA14 made a flyby. The distances between these two objects are simply spectacular, so huge that the forces between are virtually zero and would play a role if the objects were not under the influence of the Sun, Earth and Moon. Such small forces are contributing to events of clumping of protoplanets, and require vast time spans.

I see absolutely no connection between these two objects whatsoever.
Also, why would NASA, Roskosmos and every other scientific institution in the world lie about it? If they say they're connected, it doesn't change anything.

In order to connect these bolides to KEF-2013, we'd have to know their trajectories, and that's not going to happen as laymen forget these things in few hours. Also, the bolide in Cuba was not confirmed by the observatories in the area, making it a... lie? People lie and exaggerate during distress. If you've got millions of people watching "end of days" in Russia, few of them are probably going to freak out.

People see bolides all the time, but they don't report them. They don't care. They care now, and that's why we get an illusion these things are happening all the time. It's media hype.

Quote:

A fellow amateur astronomer. That's nice.

Quote:

I'm not saying its impossible for it to be random however it seems so highly unlikely I can't even begin to fathom it.

Exactly. It seems.

Quote:

Many reported a blue green glow at first before it got to bright and washed out. This is an indication of an object of metallic origin. A man made object would not survive like an irony meteor would because of density and would more then likely fall apart or explode a lot sooner then a normal metallic meteor would.These are just hypothesis and until test come back on fragments(from multiple incidences not only Russia) if indeed some are found we really won't know the whole story.

NASA declared that its mass must've been around 10 000 tonnes, and the preliminary Russian analysis of the first debris found gave chondrites as a result. It's obviously a lump of rock and metal, but the ratio is the question. That 10% metal content might be an underestimation.
It might be that the composition was very heterogeneous, with outer parts being richer in metal. We'll never know the details.

I wonder if anyone experienced the electrophonic sound. It's a huge object, and pebble sized ones can indeed produce such phenomena. I've witnessed it during one Leonid shower. It was an eerie sensation, like a buzzing sound coming from my head.

[Edited on 21-2-2013 by Endimion17] (forgot to add the part with the electrophonic sounds)

[Edited on 21-2-2013 by Endimion17]

Sedit - 20-2-2013 at 22:14

In regards to the Russian event take into perspective that it was daytime and the Sun has a Magnitude of -26.74 yet in more then a few videos it was clear that the luminosity of this meteor was much brighter then that since you can clearly see a washout of the natural shadows and they are replaced by moving shadows from the passing Fireball. Also the aperture on some of the videos was set to the ambient light automatically however when the Fireball passed over it was a complete washout because the Iris was open to much for the large amount of light that was entering.

Thanks for the numbers DerAlte, very interesting. The media and Nasa talking out there ass does not shock me in the slightest hence the reason I presented my hypothesis here that we are possibly seeing events associated with the asteroid regardless of what NASA is telling the general public, I feel they don't want to mention it to avoid the panic it might cause.

DerAlte - 20-2-2013 at 22:51

@Sedit

My number for mag. of the moon was transposed - should have read -12.7 mag.

Quote:

According to NASA experts, the meteor was brighter than the sun when it fell into the atmosphere, and remained visible for about 30 seconds.

*Edit added 21 Feb.

Comparative estimates for Tungaska are given in wiki;

Quote:

Although the meteoroid or comet appears to have burst in the air rather than hitting the surface, this event still is referred to as an impact. Estimates of the energy of the blast range from 3 to as high as 30 megatons of TNT (13–130 PJ),[8][9] with 10–15 megatons of TNT (42–63 PJ) the most likely[9]

i.e. about 20 times as high. But the damage done was enormous:

Quote:

The Tunguska explosion knocked down an estimated 80 million trees over an area covering 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi). It is estimated that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. An explosion of this magnitude is capable of destroying a large metropolitan area.[11] This possibility has helped to spark discussion of asteroid deflection strategies....

At around 07:17 local time, Evenks natives and Russian settlers in the hills northwest of Lake Baikal observed a column of bluish light, nearly as bright as the Sun, moving across the sky. About 10 minutes later, there was a flash and a sound similar to artillery fire. Eyewitnesses closer to the explosion reported the sound source moving east to north. The sounds were accompanied by a shock wave that knocked people off their feet and broke windows hundreds of kilometres away. The majority of witnesses reported only the sounds and the tremors, not the sighting of the explosion. Eyewitness accounts differ as to the sequence of events and their overall duration.

yet this object drops into a lake 'in a village' and people survive there?

No doubt a more rational picture will emerge, give some time to elapse.

Der Alte

[Edited on 21-2-2013 by DerAlte]

bfesser - 28-2-2013 at 14:19

Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17

Hah! Endimion17, I had intentionally been avoiding explicitly invoking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor" target="_blank">Ockham's razor</a> <img src="../scipics/_wiki.png" /> (lex parsimoniæ

against Sedit's argument. Way to blow it!

Now the argument's just no fun for me.

[Edited on 7/9/13 by bfesser]

franklyn - 27-3-2013 at 09:20

www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=6022&page...

bfesser - 26-2-2014 at 16:05

<a href="http://youtu.be/8-KUqX2tYA0" target="_blank">The Truth About Meteors: A Horizon Special</a> <img src="../scipics/_yt.png" />

Baffled - 4-3-2014 at 12:12

I remember reading something about a theoretical (back then) method to blast (or nuke, depending on size) meteorites out of collision course with eath. It seems odd the Russians didn't see this one coming, Chelyabinsk was home to Russia's first nuclear weapons program.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0761135936