A large object which appears to be a meteorite has exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, located in the Ural mountains near the border with Kazakhstan. The incident took place at approx. 9:30am local time (3:30GMT). Latest news indicates that over 400 people have requested medical attention. While information at this early stage is a bit sketchy, it would appear that the blast from the object exploding in the air may be the cause of the majority of the injuries, rather than injuries associated with direct hits from meteorite fragments. RT News (Russian news channel available on Sky) showed the wall of a factory blown down along with damage to windows and doors of apartments. However, it was also stated that no objects were found at this stage. Due to the common use in Russia of on-board video cameras in cars, the event has been captured on video from various angles. More details may be seen here:
rt.com/news/chelyabinsk-meteorite-witness-report-285/

While this event is not an early arrival of 2012DA14, it remains unclear at this stage whether the event in Russia is caused by a random object or a fragment associated with 2012DA14.

Video of the meteor entering the atmosphere - mashable.com/2013/02/15/meteorite-hits-russia/

also - sound of explosion: www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/0...ning-in-chelyabinsk/

WOW!

Phil.

PS - judging from the direction of travel, it looks like this object came from the general direction of the sun. 2012DA14 is heading in from the west so they were probably not an associated pair bound together by gravity.

Just reading about this now. Lots of sites have the news.

This is really is unprecedented hitting a major population centre. Apparently NORAD has tracked multiple meteorite re-entry events in the last 24 hours.


This site has a large collection of videos and pictures.

zyalt.livejournal.com/722930.html

Surely one of the greatest coincidences of all time!

Fermidox wrote:

Surely one of the greatest coincidences of all time!

Certainly is! (but don't call me Shirley )

Lots of new video appearing on YouTube - just Google "meteorite hits russia" and click the YouTube link at the top of the page.

Latest update via RT News:
rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/
Looks like they have found the impact sites.

wow, this is an amazing stroke of luck, to happen over a country where for some mad reason so many people have cameras in their cars.
I'd bet there'll be alot of russian rocks for sale on ebay soon enough.

I find it hard to accept that this is a coincidence with the passing asteroid tonight, maybe this thing was in orbit around the asteroid, hence the non related looking path, who knows.
certainly very spectacular though

This event is not connected to 2012AD14, according to NASA:

www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html

...to happen over a country where for some mad reason so many people have cameras in their cars.

The reason is explained here Dave:

www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/15/m...n-urals-live-updates

Why are there so many videos from people's cars?

Anyone who has ever seen one of those YouTube video compilations of terrifyingly dangerous Russian drivers will know that every Russian driver seems to have a camera mounted on his or her dashboard. But why?

An Animal blogpost by Marina Galperina explains:

In Russia, everyone should have a camera on their dashboard. It’s better than keeping a lead pipe under your seat for protection (but you might still want that lead pipe) ...

Psychopaths are abundant on Russian roads. You best not cut anyone off or undertake some other type of maneuver that might inconvenience the 200-pound, six-foot-five brawling children you see on YouTube hopping out of their SUVs with their dukes up ... These fights happen all the time and you can’t really press charges. Point to your broken nose or smashed windows all you want. The Russian courts don’t like verbal claims. They do, however, like to send people to jail for battery and property destruction if there’s definite video proof ...

Dash-cam footage is the only real way to substantiate your claims in the court of law. Forget witnesses. Hit and runs are very common and insurance companies notoriously specialize in denying claims. Two-way insurance coverage is very expensive and almost completely unavailable for vehicles over ten years old–the drivers can only get basic liability.

She adds that there are moments of humanity among the crashes, but basically "aside from the kindness of strangers, it’s just you and that little gadget versus the hell that is the other people on the road".

looks like there was another meteor related explosion over cuba on friday morning, pity the roads there are safer then in russia.

From Peter Brown:

"This is what I know as of 17 h UT today...

Feb 15, 2013 Fireball Event Summary

What follows are *initial* information gleaned for multiple instrumental sources recording various aspects of the Feb 15, 2013 airburst over Chelaybinsk, Russia (55.2N, 61.4E)

1. Time: The time of the main flare/airburst was 03:20:26 UT on Feb 15, 2013; the fireball began ablation about 30 secs before this time.

2. Based on the long duration of the event and videos, it is clear this was a very shallow entry (certainly less than 20 degrees, maybe more shallow).

3. It is *not* related to 2012 DA14

4. Energy: This is perhaps the hardest value to pin down so early in this investigation. From multiple sensors using multiple technologies a best initial estimate of the total energy of the event is about 300 kilotons of TNT equivalent = ~10^15 J). This could easily be in error by a factor of two. I am confident, however that it is in excess of 100 kTons, making it the largest recorded event since the 1908 Tunguska explosion.

5. Speed: The fireball entered the atmosphere at 18 km/s

6. Damage: The airblast clearly caused window breakage and light structural damage in downtown Chelaybinsk. The exact overpressure at which window failure occurs tends to be probabilistic and varies by construction design (ANSI S2.20, 1983). Normally some damage begins to occur around 500 Pa of overpressure, widespread window damage is expected to occur up to around ten-20 times this value. As the fireball had a shallow trajectory, the cylindrical blast wave would have propagated directly to the ground and would be expected to be intense. This could be further compounded by any fragmentation, quasi-spherical blasts. My impression is that the key here is that the terminal part of the fireball (probably between 15-20 km altitude) occurred almost directly over Chelaybinsk; this was perhaps the single greatest contributor to the blast damage (short range to the main part of the terminal detonation).

7. Comparators: The Sikhote-Alin fall (Feb 12, 1947) in the former Soviet Union was the equivalent of about 10 kilotons TNT, BUT as an iron impactor much of this energy was deposited at the ground rather than at altitude. The Oct 8, 2009 Indonesia event is the most recent similar event at about 50 kTons, but over the ocean (paper attached for quick reference).

8. Size: The pre-impacting asteroid was about 15 meters in diameter and had a mass of ~7000 tonnes.

I fully expect revision of some of the numbers above, particularly the estimate of the yield which could *easily* change by a factor of two upon more complete analysis and will likely change as the day progresses

/end

---

Dr. Peter Brown
Director - Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration
Canada Research Chair in Meteor Astronomy
Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
N6A 3K7
CANADA"

Got my Chelynabinsk meteorites today.