Meteor hits Russia

[dazza262 133]

I had never heard the name "Henny Penny" before, either, but I do know the story by the name of "Chicken Little". According to Wikipedia the latter is how it is known in the US while the former is more common in other English-speaking countries.

 

"Chicken Licken" is apparently another name for the story, although had I thought that was just John Scieszka's spoof of it.

 

Just for the record, I knew this story as 'Chicken Licken' as a kid here in England.

[SteveMSim 275]

The latest news reports say the meteor that exploded over Russia was larger than originally thought.  The meteor may have been as big as 20 meters across and exploded at a force of 500 kilotons, or more than 20 times the size of the Hiroshima nuclear blast.  Scientists are now saying the blast was the largest from a cosmic object since the Tunguska explosion over Siberia in 1908, caused by an asteroid coincidentally about the size of the one that whizzed by later yesterday.

[dazza262 133]

And another one.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iez6tqWDyA

[SteveMSim 275]

I remember that several years ago, a fireball streaked across the skies over North Texas, which also produced a sonic boom, and several meteor fragments were later recovered.  A scientist said that the meteor was about the size of a compact car when it entered the Earth's atmosphere.  I, however, did not witness it.  I heard it from the news.  However, I apparently witnessed a fireball myself years ago.  I cannot recall exactly when, but I was living in Florida at the time.  I saw what appeared to be a "shooting star" which flashed briefly, then I saw at least two streaking objects, indicating that a meteor broke up.  I did not hear a noise from it, however.  The whole episode must have lasted less than three seconds, and I consider myself lucky to witness it; since the odds are that you will not witness such a sight in your lifetime.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There are scheduled budget cuts to the Canadian Space Program too.  Don't know where Cdr. Hadfield will be working when he gets back.

[Haljackey 17,302]

The Daily Show on the meteor and Russian dash cams... Funny stuff!

 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-19-2013/how-i-meteored-your-motherland?xrs=share_copy

 

If link doesn't work here's the comedy network link: http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/shows/thedailyshow?videoPackage=131066 (6:18 in)

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, the first link doesn't run, but the second one did.  Hilarious.  But note that things are at such a pretty pass in Russia that everyone has a dash cam.  Not a bad idea for the rest of us, perhaps.

[Bdub01 201]

http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/dashcams-capture-chaos-on-russian-roads/17yscmjmb

Here is a link to the NBC nightly news segment on the dash cams in Russia.

[Morbx 16]

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) posted a picture today about a spacecraft that "intercepts" and changes the path of incoming asteroids. 

  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html. 

 

I'm surprised nobody saw the second meteor (the one that hit russia) coming. I've read recently about the shocking number of asteroids found to be in binary or even multiple systems, and there's no reason this one had to be any different. I'm thinking maybe it was in a pair with the larger one we DID see coming, 2012 DA 14. Just a thought, though.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Unfortunately your link is for the picture of the day and this has been updated.

 

There are thousands of NEOs.  Most of them are eaten by the atmosphere, but there are a few every century or so that do what we have recently experienced.  This is very similar to the Tunguska Event.

 

If the trajectory of that rock had been a little steeper it might just have hit the ground.  The anthill would have been greatly disturbed.  Thirty years ago it could have started the nuclear wipeout.

[Cobraroll 138]

I'm surprised nobody saw the second meteor (the one that hit russia) coming. I've read recently about the shocking number of asteroids found to be in binary or even multiple systems, and there's no reason this one had to be any different. I'm thinking maybe it was in a pair with the larger one we DID see coming, 2012 DA 14. Just a thought, though.

 

Nobody saw it coming because space is so big, and largely empty. There is almost nothing out there worth monitoring, in a relative sense. Sure, there may be a lot of NEOs, but for the most part, the sky is vast and empty. We pick a tiny part of it and zoom onto the interesting stuff (which is cool and all), but nobody bothers to monitor the big picture. It would require a lot of money and manpower, and return a bleep on the radar once every decade or so. Sure, that bleep on the radar might warn us of a rock about to destroy a metropolis or two, but the probability of that happening is small enough that it isn't worth throwing all that money at such a project. We accept the (tiny) risk, look out for bigger objects once they head our way, but for the most part, those smaller rocks tend to pass by undetected. Had it been any earlier in the evening, I might have worked out some clever analogy about single grains of sand flying around in a football stadium, and tried to explain the probabilities of those hitting each other, but it's past midnight and I'm tired, so I'll let it pass.

 

Tl;dr: I'm not surprised in the slightest that we didn't see what was coming. It's hard to find objects that small in space unless you're specifically looking for them.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And to make matters worse, we don't look much away from the plane of the ecliptic.  Something coming in orthogonally to the plane might not be detected even if was as large as the Yucatan mass of 65,000,000 years ago.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) posted a picture today about a spacecraft that "intercepts" and changes the path of incoming asteroids. 

  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html. 

 

I'm surprised nobody saw the second meteor (the one that hit russia) coming. I've read recently about the shocking number of asteroids found to be in binary or even multiple systems, and there's no reason this one had to be any different. I'm thinking maybe it was in a pair with the larger one we DID see coming, 2012 DA 14. Just a thought, though.

 

Turns out the two were unrelated... They just so happened to come within our range in the same 30 hours.

 

However, this picture is related:

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Soviet?  Nyet!