Apparently, at about 09:30 local time, a very big meteor burned up over Chelyabinsk, a city in Russia just east of the Ural mountains, and about 1500 kilometers east of Moscow. A pretty big sonic boom from the fireball, which set off car alarms and shattered windows. There are reports of many people injured (by shattered glass blown out by the shock wave).
Here's a video collection of the Ural Meteorit:
A vast collection of internet videos showing "Tuguska Light" (is there an 'official' term by now?) and its aftermath (Photo of the meteorite from the space and the 6-meter wide crater at Lake Chebarkul included) :
http://say26.com/meteorite-in-russia-all-videos-in-one-place
According to ESA experts there is NO link between Russia event & asteroid 2012 DA14 close approach.
Here you can see preliminary calculations showing how the 2 events are unrelated
http://kaira.sgo.fi/2013/02/are-2012-da14-and-chelyabinsk-meteor.html
thanks to Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes
There's no way for something like that traveling above escape velocity to curve its way around our planet to the point that it reaches the Ural mountains!
It's literally a cosmic coincidence, although a spectacular one but this are 2 different space bodies or events
Below you can see an animation (10-minute steps) showing the path of 2012 DA14 from 21:00 UT of Feb. 15 to 02:00 UT of Feb. 16 (calculated for Rome, Italy). Next to the asteroid designation, you can see the expected magnitude value. Click on the animation for a bigger version.
The animated gif below made by Geert Barentsen indicate (green areas) parts of the world where the asteroid will be above (and the Sun below) the horizon during the period of its maximum brigthness (18h00-21h30 UTC of Feb. 15). Observers in Australia, Asia and Europe will be best placed. Click on the
animation for a bigger version.
Back to the russian asteroid
Meanwhile there are Parts of the Chelyabinsk meteorite 'on sale' on some Russian websites. "Will sell meteorite pieces cheap, photos later," an announcement read
Update, UTC Time 14:23 Friday
NASA Follows Asteroid Flyby
Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST)
Watch it here
NASA JPL LIVE:
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2
or
Nasa TV:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
great report IWTB!
ReplyDeleteChelyabinsk wasn't the only fireball reported on the same day that DA14 passed by. I don't know if I believe Frank Davis that most of them actually were related to DA14 in some way, but he has a couple possible explanations for the different trajectories. And these are supported by his computer models. If there's a chance that he's right it means that near-miss asteroids can be accompanied by such events -- meaning a serious risk when Apophis passes in 2029. If he's wrong, I'd like to see NASA or someone specifically debunk his models.
ReplyDeletehttps://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/rock-cloud-strike/
https://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/hunting-for-che/
https://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/a-different-health-risk/
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/andrew-cooper-were-the-recent-asteroid-flyby-and-russian-meteor-strike-events-linked/
-- Jim Burrill