I can't stay up all night to monitor this, but here's a space for those of you in various time zones to add what you know.
Video before the jump on this one:
Tags: meteorites, Russia
More links from around the web!
58 comments
two things about this... First, It DIDN'T EVEN HIT the town and it caused a LOT of damage. And second, watch this footage wind up being used in low budget movies!
1 Like
I never worry about the end of the world, but things like this do keep my emergency shelter system up and working though.
I honestly thought this was fake. It's weird when real-life seems less realistic than films.
"That's supposed to be real? Pfff. Shitey graphics."
I think this thread is a good place for commenting on the asteroid coming by at 2:20PMest
I shall start by saying we shouldn't be just watching this, it should be slowed down and moved into a stable orbit so it can be studied and exploited - moving mass into orbit is expensive and this is a gift we should be taking advantage of
1 Like
Actually Saw it here first late last night.. TR, your world news source.
For a minute I actually thought it might be a prank trailer for something.
4 Like
All of this was predicted by Nostradamus:
"When ships of poo are laid low, and shows of Community fall from humor, LOOK to the red sky and see shattering rocks of earth and might."
1 Like
@Canadian.Scott @BowtiesAreCool Ha! No, I mentioned it in another thread. Fucking terrible and sad.
@BowtiesAreCool @Canadian.Scott Well in a couple weeks there is an episode titled "Alternative History of the German Invasion" and it is what happened if Germany won the war. SO i will give it. Saving that I will withhold for the christmas episode.
2 Like
@Canadian.Scott @BowtiesAreCool OK. What are the three pivotal episodes for Community?
1.) Halloween 2 out of 10
2.) Paint Ball (like you said)
3.) Christmas?
1 Like
@BowtiesAreCool I will admit that the episode was a bit weak but it did have the funny moments. But they were few and far between. I'm withholding judgement on the season until i see the Paintball episode.
1 Like
@solsson actually the odds of an asteroid hitting your house are zero, unless your house is in space, because they're meteorites when they aren't in space anymore. The odds of a meteorite hitting your home are way better than that, those are more like "What are the odds of a meteorite causing damage to your home"
odds are that your home has been hit by a meteorite if it is at least a few years old
If you have a rain barrel that collects run off from your roof gutter system (and you should - it's a great way to conserve water for GP non-potable uses) you can run a rare earth magnet around the bottom and collect bunches of them - along with lots of industrial byproduct that are nearly indistinguishable.
the meteorites bits will be highly rounded and a little glossy (fusion crust) but you'll have to look for proof under a microscope
2 Like
Movoto's editor's note at the bottom of the article may help clear up any confusion:
There can be confusion between what is a meteoroid, what is an asteroid, and what is a meteorite. The difference is location and size. An asteroid is the name for a large object in space and meteoroid is the name for a smaller object. We recognize the point at which a meteoroid becomes an asteroid is debatable, so we decided to go with Wikipedia’s definition of an asteroid.
Additionally, once an asteroid enters an atmosphere it becomes a meteor. Then if it hits the ground it will become a meteorite. In this sense, an asteroid can become a meteorite. For simplicity, we used the term “asteroid” throughout the piece.
1 Like
Joanna Newsom made it a lot easier to remember in her song Emily:
I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember
That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee
@solsson yeah, just being nit picky - still they should hit your roof a couple times a year. I think it's neat that they're really so common that we need to stop thinking about them as being the cause of rare events
4 Like
When I woke up this morning and read this news, for a moment I thought that big one had hit.
First Tunguska, now this. Meteors hate Russia.
3 Like
Here is some good information, youtube videos and pictures following the aftermath...
http://www.uproxx.com/gammasquad/2013/02/meteor-russia-asteroid-2012-da14/
1 Like
@Canadian.Scott does make me wonder how much of the damage is more the result of stereotypical crappy Soviet era construction, but then we haven't seen the impact site yet
1 Like
@Gallen_Dugall @Canadian.Scott Nopes. Not shoddy construction. Plenty of people were injured or killed from flying glass in Oklahoma City when the Murrah Building was bombed.
@Nicnac @Gallen_Dugall @Canadian.Scott true, but I was more talking about the Zinc Factory roof collapse and other structural damage caused by a sonic boom
3 Like
@Gallen_Dugall @Canadian.Scott And if i know my conspiracy theories, we probably never will.
@troi did it get canceled? QUICK - TO THE WIKI MOBILE! Nope it's still being produced.
@Canadian.Scott @Gallen_Dugall likely it was only between golf ball and softball in size (broken up into fragments before it hit to create a strewn field) and anything that hit the water would have fragmented even further. If the Ruskies in the area have any sense they'll be grabbing up the bits for sale on the very profitable meteor market - being from a documented event increases the value.
5 Like
Gentlemen, by now we must accept the unthinkable. That despite everything we've been told, that Alex Rogan failed his mission, and this incident is merely the first strike by the Kodan Armada against Earth.
I suggest we prepare for an invasion force.
6 Like
@ComradeDread1Are we sure that this isn't a bug attack?
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/GBPIw.jpg[/IMG]
4 Like
@vangald We hope so, seems likely so far, unless there were some Deep Ones living in that lake.
2 Like
@FabioRezende and yet io9 goes unpunished even after they defamed the great Cthulhu
5 Like
For anyone wondering, here are some more links to several other videos chronicling this event, as well as live, updating info on it.
I am...honestly kind of conflicted here. On one hand, this is a meteor explosion, & is probably one of the most spectacular, unbelievable, & awe-inspiring acts of nature we will ever get to see, & are thus lucky to have captured on video...and on the other hand, over 400 people got injured (largely from glass shattering in the process), & my heart naturally goes out to any who were extremely frightened or hurt when all of this happened.
1 Like
@SlyDante777 Also, these people believe in gypsy witchcraft, so their level of fright is more than say, Reno NV level of fright.
I feel worse for the Poop Boat people. But I'm sure it freaked them out.
1 Like
Is this related to the 2PMest flyby? Seems unlikely that its an unrelated incident.
3 Like
@Gallen_Dugall The officials are pretty much saying nope, this is completely unrelated. Though in that case, it's a pretty damn big coincidence.
6 Like
@SlyDante777 @Gallen_Dugall It's no coincidence that this meteor hit us while we were focused on another one. Meteors have the same hunting patterns as the raptors from Jurassic Park.
@thorshammer @SlyDante777 @Gallen_Dugall clever mineral
sorry, i thought for sure i'd find a synonym that sounded more like "girl" and spent way too long looking and couldnt just not do it at that point.
5 Like
@SlyDante777 @Gallen_Dugall it seems likely to common sense that whatever starts one object moving could induce others to move as well.
if DA14 is a Kuiper belt object set into sunward motion by a collision then it is probable that some debris was generated by the collision and headed the same way. If it's not a Kuiper belt object we know from the '94 jupiter impact that traveling close to a gravity well can cause objects like comets to break up into smaller chunks.
too bad this hit the lake really it will make the recovery problematic (plus water impacts are always more destructive) I would have liked to know what the composition of this was. maybe the "meteorite men" will attempt a recovery using Discovery Channel funds
3 Like
okay according to the big news agencies it landed "in a lake near Chebarkul" a quick check of a map shows how lazy that statement is as the region is covered by small bodies of water. Most of the video, pics and reported damage seem to be from the much more urban city of Chelyabinsk approx thirty miles away from the "impact site" - most of the 600+ injuries appear to be of the "flying debris" types induced by the sonic boom. Sonic booms can be very destructive and don't require a large mass to generate them so with any luck we may have had a very low casualty impact event.
Does look like we'll be "discovering" the tendency of astronomical bodies to travel in groups.
