FORUMula1.com

[What's Burning?]

AP Reports; CHELYABINSK, Russia — More than 500 people were injured when a meteorite shot across the sky and exploded over central Russia today, sending fireballs crashing to Earth, shattering windows and damaging buildings.

Residents heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave as they went to work in Chelyabinsk, according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 950 miles east of Moscow.

The meteorite then raced across the horizon, leaving a long trail of white smoke in its wake which could be seen as far as 125 miles away in Yekaterinburg. Car alarms went off, windows shattered and mobile phones worked only intermittently.

“I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day,” said Viktor Prokofiev, a 36-year-old resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains.

“I felt like I was blinded by headlights,” he said.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said the meteorite was travelling at a speed of 19 miles per second and that such events were hard to predict. The Interior Ministry said the meteorite explosion had cased a sonic boom.

Search groups were set up to look for the remains of the meteorite.

Russia’s emergency-response agency said 514 people were injured, mainly due to flying glass, and that 112 of those were hospitalized. No fatalities were reported.

President Vladimir Putin, who was due to host treasury officials from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were quickly informed.

Windows were shattered on Chelyabinsk’s central Lenin Street and some of the frames of shop fronts buckled.

A loud noise, resembling an explosion, rang out at around 9:20 a.m. The shockwave could be felt in apartment buildings in the industrial city’s downtown.

“I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend,” said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his last name. “Then there was a flash, and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shockwave that smashed windows.”

A wall was damaged at the nearby Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant but there was no environmental threat, a plant spokeswoman said.

A meteorite is thought to have devastated an area of more than 1,250 square miles in Siberia in 1908, smashing windows as far as 125 miles from the point of impact.

Russia’s emergency-response agency described today’s events as a “meteor shower in the form of fireballs” and said background radiation levels were normal. It urged residents not to panic.

Chelyabinsk city officials told residents to stay indoors unless they needed to pick up their children from school. The officials said a blast had been heard at an altitude of 32,800 feet, apparently signalling it occurred when the meteorite entered Earth’s atmosphere.

The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 150 feet in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth today at 17,000 feet, closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.

Television, weather and communications satellites fly about 500 miles higher. The moon is 14 times farther away.

I can't believe that shirtless Putin was unable to stop it.

[geetface9]

[What's Burning?]

Some are saying it's North Korea, needing to fine tune the guidance system of their ICBM.

[scotty]

Video removed. 19 miles a second??!

[andrew]

Amazing that no one was killed!

Pictures from Wikipedia page 2013 Russian meteor event.

[LewEngBridewell]

There's been another meteor sailing by, quite close to earth as well hasn't there? Maybe a space giant is angry with us.

[stonemonkey]

The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 150 feet in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth today at 17,000 feet, closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.

Why is it described as an encounter at 17,000 feet, seems an odd way to put it.

[andrew]

The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 150 feet in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth today at 17,000 feet, closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.

Why is it described as an encounter at 17,000 feet, seems an odd way to put it.

Well if you're very tall it's quite a close encounter.........

[What's Burning?]

The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 150 feet in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth today at 17,000 feet, closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.

Why is it described as an encounter at 17,000 feet, seems an odd way to put it.

I believe the comma after feet must go.

[darwin dali]

The correct numbers are:

The impact involved a 50-foot-wide (15-meter-wide), 7,000-ton asteroid that zoomed in from space at a velocity of 40,000 mph (18 kilometers per second), NASA officials said. They said the shock of atmospheric entry blasted the rock apart at a height of 12 to 15 miles (20 to 25 kilometers), releasing the energy equivalent of 300 to 500 kilotons of TNT. That's more than 10 times the energy released by the atom bombs that exploded over Japan at the end of World War II. In fact, NASA said its estimates were based on readings from infrasound sensors that were set up by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization to detect nuclear blasts.

The fireball hit just hours before a 150-foot-wide asteroid, known as 2012 DA14, came within 17,200 miles of Earth during an unusually close but harmless flyby. NASA officials said there was no connection between the two events. "It's simply a coincidence," said Paul Chodas, an asteroid researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


That's a slight difference...

[stonemonkey]

That makes more sense.

[What's Burning?]

Most news agencies are more concerned with being first than they are with being right.

[AK86]

Very lucky it just turned out people getting injured from glass shattering etc Watched the horizon program last night about it after top gear and was a very good watch.

[stonemonkey]

Very lucky it just turned out people getting injured from glass shattering etc Watched the horizon program last night about it after top gear and was a very good watch.

Thanks, i missed that but got it on iplayer now.