Meteorite flew over Urals, Russia
17 Feb 2013 9:36:14 UTC
Topic 196808
(moderation:
Fri,Feb,15,2013. 9:20am (GMT+6)
Meteorite flew over Chelyabinsk city, South Urals, Russia.
Approximate size is about 5 to 10 meters, average speed is about 30 km/s, the altitude of the first explosion is over 55 km. It was seen from about 300 km from a flyby point over the Chelyabinsk city, where I am. A lot of windows were broken by the acoustic wave. Here's some videos of it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpVXmBiNmsY
Over 1200 people were injured by the glass. Many appartments are still without windows though it is -15C on the street. No man was killed by the accident. But a warehouse wall of a electrolythic factory were broken.
Some people, who looked at the flyby had eye corneas burned a little bit. Believed, that the splash was 5 times more bright than a midday sunlight. Two splinters fell to 2 different lakes in a distance of 80 km (one waterstorage is in the west side of the city and another one is to the Chebarkul lake near Chebarkul town). Splinters aren't found yet. Divers are looking for them.
Meteorite entered the atmosphere in an acute angle with a rather big speed. So there were no chances to detect it early.
Unfortunatelly I slept at that moment, so no pictures from myself ;( But a lot of videos from youtube.
P.S. NASA's first estimations of the size, of the altitude and of the power of explosion are wrong.
Meteorite flew over Urals, Russia
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How dangerous is that? Only a handful of metres across and what energy they carry. Good that no-one was killed, I hope the injured recover well.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
This is rather rare
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This is rather rare phenomenon, so nobody was ready for this. Very many citizen looked at their windows at the light trail and the splash. And no one of them thought that an acoustic wave will arise soon. I had an opportunity to measure the time between the moment of explosion and a sound of it, so I've determined accurate enough the distance to it.
First of all there was a panic, caused by women (I'm sorry for that, but that's the truth). Than everybody started to call their relatives, but cellular networks got down for about a half of a day. City manager asked to allow people to go home to check windows and to get their children home from hospitals and kindegartens (almost all buildings for children have large windows to let sunlight in). Almost everywhere firm headers and top office managers disposed to pour 50 grams of cognac to extinguish a panic.
The others treated it quietly and just got home earlier than usual (Thanks God its was Friday :)
The reaction of people you can see in youtube (look for an earliest clip, where a car registrator looks both in and outside car http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f525TmMSBs0 - that was a reaction of the severe Chelyabinsk man :)
P.S. For those of you who can't write in russian - the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=e6Eql-V-VrU
Most of the words are not translatable (I think you know why ;)
Than average meaning is - Wow!
http://news.yahoo.com/russian
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http://news.yahoo.com/russian-meteor-blast-bigger-thought-nasa-says-234920189.html
Yahoo news about it being bigger than thought....
PC setup MSI-970A-G46 AMD FX-8350 8 core OC'd 4.45GHz 16GB ram PC3-10700 Geforce GTX 650Ti Windows 7 x64 Einstein@Home
New estimations of the size
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New estimations of the size and speed are interesting. Actually the bolid have to have a significant mass to go through the athmosphere such a long way before the initial explosion. But I can't believe in the estimation of the explosion power. Even if it was in huge altitude of 60 km, it is not real to believe in such a power. Just compare it to destructions made in Hiroshima. The shock wave in Hiroshima destructed almost every small building in distance more then 60 km. So, I can't agree with that yet.
agree or not... that's just
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agree or not... that's just what's in yahoo news about it. Just thought I would link it.
PC setup MSI-970A-G46 AMD FX-8350 8 core OC'd 4.45GHz 16GB ram PC3-10700 Geforce GTX 650Ti Windows 7 x64 Einstein@Home
The probable reconciliation
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The probable reconciliation on power estimates is simply over attribution to what area/volume was the energy spent upon, and via what energy modes.
At Hiroshima there was a stationary bomb ( over the brief moment it took to explode ) at around 2000 ft, with a large heat, gamma-ray and subatomic particle yield. The buildings in about a 5 mile radius were totally destroyed, some about out to about twice that. 60km I would think refers to fallout etc perhaps.
The meteorite is a fast moving 'abrasive device' with different shockwave kinetics etc. My guess is that the power estimate comes from the initial kinetic energy ( mass and speed prior to hitting the upper atmosphere ) divided by the time to fall. Alot of that energy would go into breaking bonds within the meteorite material itself.
Alternatively some may be referring to 'peak power' or some such, and if that is the case then that is only a momentary comment.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
That's right. We here do not
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That's right. We here do not have neighter signs of radiation at all, nor residuals of a meteorite itself has been found yet. I assume it was whole rock with some ice in it. Otherwise we would already have been found some splinters.