Meteorite falls in Chelyabinsk, Russia

shedweller

Quick question. (from my wife in fact!)
I thought we tracked lamost everything in our local space.
Why wasn't this tracked beforehand. It has proven itself to have had enough energy to cause major damage if aimed correctly.
Was it tracked and deemed unworthy of mention for fear of causing undue disruption?
Was it simply too small and too far away to pick out and track?

edit: I have answered my own question. It was too small and faint to see.http://www.lfpress.com/2013/02/15/western-university-astronomer-says-russian-meteor-first-of-its-type-in-more-than-100-years-too-small-to-track

Despite the meteor strike over Russia being the largest recorded object to hit the Earth in more than a century, it's no surprise no one saw it coming, says a member of the Western University Meteor Group.

Hundreds of people were injured and buildings damaged about 9:20 a.m. in Chelyabinsk, a city of one million about 1,500 kilometres east of Moscow.

Western University astronomy professor Margaret Campbell-Brown said the meteor was about 15 metres across, one third the size of the asteroid that flew by the Earth Friday.

Friday's larger 45-metre diameter asteroid is at the limit of what astronomers are able to track, she said.

"It doesn't surprise me at all we would miss a 15-metre object before it hits us because it would be very faint and very hard to detect," said Campbell-Brown, who is also a member of Western's Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration.

"If the object isn't lit by the glare of the sun it is hidden," she said.

Daffodil.d

I know they're denying that both events the safe fly by and the meteorite hit, are not connected but seriously what are the odds of such a coincidence. I don't believe they weren't connected. One hit the north and the other came in from the south. Is that even the truth. Am I the only one who thinks this.

Rasmus

Daffodil.d wrote: »

I know they're denying that both events the safe fly by and the meteorite hit, are not connected but seriously what are the odds of such a coincidence. I don't believe they weren't connected. One hit the north and the other came in from the south. Is that even the truth. Am I the only one who thinks this.

Why would they lie though? Any ameteur astronomer would be abke to confirm/challenge the north/south direction claim anyway.

Daffodil.d

Rasmus wrote: »

Why would they lie though? Any ameteur astronomer would be abke to confirm/challenge the north/south direction claim anyway.

I know and I was sitting here trying to think how could they hide that but to be fair it is an unbelievable coincidence.

Popoutman

That time-lapse shows just how high the dust trail was - watch the shadow of it moving above the cloudbase.

littlemac1980

Popoutman wrote: »

That time-lapse shows just how high the dust trail was - watch the shadow of it moving above the cloudbase.

That's really bizarre - there are two shadows - one (the large fuzzy quickmoving shadow) which would make sense given the sharp angle of the sun at sunrise evident in the shading of the earth, and the speed obviously disproportionately quick on account of the movement of the sun.

But what i can't figure out is what causes (i.e what light source) creates the shadow immediately with the fireball angle of which appears to suggest a direction of light coming from slightly below the observer and slightly to the right.

Kersh

Some fantastic videos of that.
The damage done is unreal.

ZeRoY

shedweller wrote: »

Quick question. (from my wife in fact!)
I thought we tracked lamost everything in our local space.
Why wasn't this tracked beforehand. It has proven itself to have had enough energy to cause major damage if aimed correctly.
Was it tracked and deemed unworthy of mention for fear of causing undue disruption?
Was it simply too small and too far away to pick out and track?

Its coming .... http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/satellites/neossat/

weisses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkovLyEKews

Video focuses more on the blast (shock wave) ... unreal

expectationlost

phil plait is saying they are actual explosions of the thing breaking up rather then just sonicbooms, the vido starting at 3mins is mad, it seems so calm for ages then boom

littlemac1980

Here's link to reports of two other meteorites - in California and Cuba. There seems to be only 2 poor videos of the California one, and a picture of the one over Cuba.

http://www.meteotimes.net/2013/02/video-first-russia-now-cuba-apparently.html

You'll see there is a line in the report :

"Though it may seem strange to have two high-profile meteor sightings in a span of a little less than 24 hours, Sacramento City College Astronomy Coordinator Liam McDaid says it’s just a coincidence."

Just a Cold War-esque coincidence.

Calibos

I take it the CT forum is going apesh1t over this

Maximus Alexander

In before "It's not a meteorite, it's a crashed alien space craft!"

sink

The only coincidence is that humans were alive to witness it. These type of events have been happening for billions of years, long before our species evolved and will continue long after we're extinct. In cosmological time-scales they're common as muck, what's unique is our presence.

sink

expectationlost wrote: »

phil plait is saying they are actual explosions of the thing breaking up rather then just sonicbooms, the vido starting at 3mins is mad, it seems so calm for ages then boom

That's because it's over 50km away. The speed of sound is .34 km/s at sea level. 50/.34 = 147 seconds.

The fact that it can shatter windows at 50km away shows the amazing energy of the blast estimated a 500 kilotons of TNT or some where around 20-30 times the energy of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions.

mickmackey1

sink wrote: »

The fact that it can shatter windows at 50km away shows the amazing energy of the blast estimated a 500 kilotons of TNT

What I find even more amazing is that humans can construct a weapon 100 TIMES more powerful -

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-most-powerful-bomb-ever-constructed/

Incidentally, is there any way of translating what the blokes who took the videos are actually saying, I'd like to understand their reactions when the sound wave struck:cool:

quodec

Two observations:

1) What is kind of surprising is the amount of cameras in cars in central Russia, switched on on a Friday morning at 9 a.m. Are some of these police cars, or what?

2) The time delay between the camcorders showing the heat/debris trail in the sky above the town and the shock waves hitting the buildings; maybe several seconds at least. Strange!

refusetolose

quodec wrote: »

Two observations:

1) What is kind of surprising is the amount of cameras in cars in central Russia, switched on on a Friday morning at 9 a.m. Are some of these police cars, or what?

read that most have cameras for legal reasons

2) The time delay between the camcorders showing the heat/debris trail in the sky above the town and the shock waves hitting the buildings; maybe several seconds at least. Strange!

the shockwaves had to travel 30 to 50 km

littlemac1980

Autobots - has to be.

crushproof

quodec wrote: »

Two observations:

1) What is kind of surprising is the amount of cameras in cars in central Russia, switched on on a Friday morning at 9 a.m. Are some of these police cars, or what?

2) The time delay between the camcorders showing the heat/debris trail in the sky above the town and the shock waves hitting the buildings; maybe several seconds at least. Strange!

A lot of people have them because of cases of insurance fraud and the likes in Mother Russia.

shedweller

refusetolose wrote: »

the shockwaves had to travel 30 to 50 km

Thats it. Sound travels a lot slower than light. Science 101

Calibos

Dash cams are effectively mandatory in Russia as the Russian insurance industry demand them if you want car insurance due to corruption of the police. ie it would be the person with the least amount of cash in their pocket when the police arrived that would be at fault for the accident. For the same reason, most car crash vids on the Internet are of Russian origin. While Russian roads probably aren't the safest in the world by a very long shot, they are made to look a lot unsafer than they are be the amount of crash vids you see from there.

fricatus

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Incidentally, is there any way of translating what the blokes who took the videos are actually saying, I'd like to understand their reactions when the sound wave struck:cool:

I don't know enough Russian to understand it all, but listen out for people shouting "ебать!" which is pronounced "ye-BATCH" and which basically means "fuuuuck!!!"

quodec wrote: »

Two observations:

1) What is kind of surprising is the amount of cameras in cars in central Russia, switched on on a Friday morning at 9 a.m. Are some of these police cars, or what?

Not surprising at all in Russia - because of insurance fraud and a not-quite-upstanding police force, large numbers of motorists use dash-cams, so that they'll have evidence of what really happened if they ever need it. It means that we have lots of footage of anything that happens near to a road, such as the Red Wings crash near Moscow in the last few weeks.

quodec wrote: »

2) The time delay between the camcorders showing the heat/debris trail in the sky above the town and the shock waves hitting the buildings; maybe several seconds at least. Strange!

It's the same reason that thunder rumbles a few seconds after the flash. The explosion took place about 30 or 40 miles away so it would have taken a while for the shockwave to reach Chelyabinsk. It only takes a fraction of a second for the light to travel the same distance.

expectationlost

some interesting speculation on this list http://www.mail-archive.com/meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com/

4ndroid

Seems the whispers of a meteorite hitting cuba and san francisco around the same day are true. What are the chances?

http://abcnews.go.com/m/video?id=18520122

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/touch/story.html?id=7976400

http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_17/Meteorite-explodes-over-Cuba-VIDEO/

Daffodil.d

4ndroid wrote: »

Seems the whispers of a meteorite hitting cuba and san francisco around the same day are true. What are the chances?

http://abcnews.go.com/m/video?id=18520122

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/touch/story.html?id=7976400

http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_17/Meteorite-explodes-over-Cuba-VIDEO/

Did they all come from the same direction.?

Rasmus

4ndroid wrote: »

Seems the whispers of a meteorite hitting cuba and san francisco around the same day are true. What are the chances?

http://abcnews.go.com/m/video?id=18520122

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/touch/story.html?id=7976400

http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_17/Meteorite-explodes-over-Cuba-VIDEO/

The chances are that these wouldn't have made big news if it wasn't for the Russian meteorite. Unless you're an avid astronomer you'd be none the wiser.

Capt'n Midnight

sink wrote: »

If Russia does have a nuclear tipped missile shield, which is a bit far fetched in itself; then it is designed to intercept ICBM's which travel at fractions of the speed of meteors, outside of a Hollywood it's impossible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty

Ballistic missiles don't even get to orbital speed




Incoming meteors and comets would be of three main types

stony - one big rock becomes lots of little ones, instead of one big hole which may or may not be in a built up area you now have a cluster bomb and lots more stuff gets hit

iron/nickel - you'll scratch the paintwork

ice - ice is funny stuff, if you try to blow up an iceberg you'll probably just punch a hole through it, and it'll probably explode in the atmosphere anyway,

expectationlost

caused 2.7 mag equiv earthquake http://www.space.com/19816-russian-meteor-earthquake-signal.html

Daffodil.d

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZzG881Vii8
Interesting