Phewwww. That was close.

Missed us by that much.

It’s imnportant to note that we only learned of THIS NEO last year.

Russia had meteor showers today. Science!

Heh, I saw this post and was going to link to that myself.

THANK YOU!!

Yeah, that was something (in Russia). I’ve never seen (or heard) anything like it. I think I would’ve been a little rattled myself over that, so can’t blame those folks who freaked a bit over there.

I never knew a meteor would actually cause explosions like that. I always thought that was another of those long time Hollywood myths (like people becoming unconscience during fights) because they’re just rock and no explosives. Yeah, I’m an idiot.

Thanks, DSW. On the Russian meteor, I’m a bit puzzled as NASA keeps saying the two are not connected. And certainly, looking at lots of Russian videos, it looked like a different track, until I saw over at the Washington Post site that the videos are mostly looking south, so the track would have been not north to south as they have been saying, but south to north, the same as the asteroid. Plus, would not a smaller object like a meteor be pulled more by the earth’s gravity so come on ahead of the asteroid? I’m no astronomer, but it makes sense to me. This from the Washington Post updated blog:

“Meteor released more energy than North Korean nuke

The meteor that crashed into Russia was the largest recorded object to strike the Earth in more than a century, Nature reports. It released more energy than the nuclear weapon tested by North Korea a few days ago.
That raises another interesting point — most of the thousands of damaged apartments and buildings were hit by shockwaves from the explosion of the rock breaking up in the atmosphere, not the actual fragments, or meteorites, hitting the ground.”

I would add that in some of the earlier videos I saw, you can hear a multitude of seperate small ‘booms’ that sound like projectiles hitting, though it is the first big one that sets off the car alarms and shatters windows.

My kids and I watched that video this morning. It’s one of the most amazing videos I have ever seen. I admit that if I had been in that car, I would have assumed death was imminent.

The occurrence in Russia can be googled for videos which show what happened from the perspective of many commuters, viewable at various news sites.

Meteors exploding in the atmosphere are not news. It occurs, but usually so small and so high up we don’t notice… but sometimes we do.

As for this bolide (common term for this exploding fireball type of meteor) being part of the NEO, that’s not very likely at all. Gravity accelerates all objects equally regardless of their individual mass.

The only reason I don’t say “impossible” is that all these rocks have been banging around the solar system for billions of years and it’s possible that the Russian bolide might once have had a nodding acquaintance with the NEO in aeons past.

Today was just a coincidence, really.

The rocks courses were VERY different. The NEO was a north-south orientation, the hit was more east-west. It is possible they are related, but only if God has a pool cue and is VERY good at three-cushion.

Boxturtle (In they find the hit and it’s got a big 8 on it, well…)

*ahem* I said “in aeons past”.