Meteorite hits Russia

[Trunks]

Not sure who has all heard, tons of videos about it on youtube, I'll post a few of the ones that I thought were cool. This happened early morning in Russia today. According to NASA the shockwave from the blast was equivalent to a 300-kiloton explosion or 20 bombs that hit Hiroshima. Three consecutive explosions shattered the meteorite while in the air. Large fragments moving at a high speed caused a powerful flash and a strong shockwave, with most of its energy released at a height of 5 to 15 km above the earth, with the atmosphere absorbing most of that energy. It's estimated that the meteorite is 15 meters in diameter with a mass of around 40 tons. Meteorite fragments have damaged 2,962 buildings including 34 healthcare facilities, 11 social security institutions and 361 school and pre-school educational institutions, Russian Emergencies Ministry said. Total number injured is unknown but expected to be in the thousands. Also expect damages is equivalent to 13 million dollars.

The actual meteorite:


Video's of reaction of the impact:


The after match, just a building that one fragment hit.


If I didn't know a meteorite was going to hit, and saw that coming through the sky, I'd think we were getting bombed.

[thedeparted]

I read this is the largest hit since Siberia one in 1908 that flattened 900 sq miles of forest.

[LiNuX]

Heard about it before I left for work this morning. This was the topic of the day at work today, every one I saw mentioned it to me since they all know I'm into astronomy.

For those wondering, this isn't linked with Asteroid DA14 which passed by Earth today. If it was, we would have seen a lot more fragments coming down (Source: NDT).

It's pretty awesome but sucks that it hurt so many people. I'm glad there were no casualties. This is a sign that the space program needs to be very highly boosted because this is just one out of trillions of rocks (asteroids and comets) which have not been discovered yet.

[xLykos]

Meteorite? Lol man they've got you guys fooled... Here's the real, unedited picture of what actually happened...


You're welcome. 'Murica.

[paecmaker]

Must be pretty scary to see something like that.

Just wonder what could have happened if this happend over a city like new york/Tokyo or similar.

[thedeparted]

Yeah with us humans building more dense cities we're just asking for mega disasters