Meteorite Explodes Over Russia

[PPI Brian]

There are numerous reports and videos about a large fireball that made landfall in Russia on February 15th, 2013. Information and videos are still being collected. Here's some video of this spectacular event:

http://www.youtube.com/v/90Omh7_I8vI

The blast from this object caused a lot of damage, but it was nothing compared to the 1908 explosion over Siberia:

http://www.youtube.com/v/HXfvhJoNi90

[PPI Tim]

Thanks Brian.
Those were interesting.  :o

[PPI Debra]

Last night there were reports of a fireball over Northern and Central California.
I'll see if I can find an article about it.

Here's one from Space.com:
http://www.space.com/19836-meteor-california-bay-area.html

[PPI Debra]

The the meteor over Russia has been re-evaluated as stronger than initially thought:

"The new estimates, based on additional readings from a sensor network built to detect nuclear blasts, suggest the meteor released the energy equivalent of nearly 500 kilotons of TNT. That's about 30 times the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb."


http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/16/16985690-estimates-raised-for-nuclear-sized-asteroid-blast-that-hit-russia?lite

[PPI Brian]

Absolutely amazing. Thankfully it exploded 15 miles above the ground (79,000 feet), instead of close to the ground. It would have been a lot worse.

I've been fascinated by the eye witness video of the event on YouTube. The sonic boom hit two and a half minutes after the fireball exploded in the sky, catching everyone off guard. I think that's why so many people were injured... they went outside to look at the train in the sky and then the shock wave blew out the windows, spraying them with broken glass. Another thing that surprised me was the fact there wasn't just one sonic boom, but a dozen. It sounded like the finale from a fireworks display.

http://www.youtube.com/v/Rq-NpkLPgdU

http://www.youtube.com/v/V-0w3FPkXds

http://www.youtube.com/v/xaW4Ol3_M1o

http://www.youtube.com/v/bH95IpdcFJo

[Shellshock]

Thanks for sharing all the links and clips !

[PPI Brian]

Here's an update regarding this extraordinary astronomical event from the American Meteor Society:For basic information about fireball meteors please see the fireball FAQ.

Lastest News
From NASA Community Facebook Page

New information provided by a worldwide network of sensors has allowed scientists to refine their estimates for the size of the object that entered that atmosphere and disintegrated in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, at 7:20:26 p.m. PST, or 10:20:26 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 (3:20:26 UTC on Feb. 15).

The estimated size of the object, prior to entering Earth?s atmosphere, has been revised upward from 49 feet (15 meters) to 55 feet (17 meters), and its estimated mass has increased from 7,000 to 10,000 tons. Also, the estimate for energy released during the event has increased by 30 kilotons to nearly 500 kilotons of energy released. These new estimates were generated using new data that had been collected by five additional infrasound stations located around the world ? the first recording the event being in Alaska, over 6,500 kilometers away from Chelyabinsk. The infrasound data indicates that the event, from atmospheric entry to the meteor?s airborne disintegration took 32.5 seconds. The calculations using the infrasound data were performed by Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

?We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average,? said Paul Chodas of NASA?s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. ?When you have a fireball of this size we would expect a large number of meteorites to reach the surface and in this case there were probably some large ones.?

The trajectory of the Russia meteor was significantly different than the trajectory of the asteroid 2012 DA14, which hours later made its flyby of Earth, making it a completely unrelated object. The Russia meteor is the largest reported since 1908, when a meteor hit Tunguska, Siberia.

http://www.amsmeteors.org/2013/02/large-daytime-fireball-hits-russia/

Here's a link to a report describing a Tanguska sized event happening above a populated area: 

https://support.rms.com/publications/1908_tunguska_event.pdf