Scientists estimate: the size of the meteorite that exploded in Russia was close to 20 m when entering the atmosphere; Reports of another meteor in Cuba
It was probably the most destructive meteorite to hit Earth in more than 100 years. The scientists of the American space agency say that the explosion over the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia was 30 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Fortunately, it happened at an altitude of dozens of kilometers, and despite the extensive destruction, the damage was relatively minor. More than a thousand people were injured, most of them from broken glass. The Russian authorities sent about 20,000 aid workers to the region to quickly repair the damage. "It is a meteor whose size upon entering the atmosphere was 15-20 m, and its speed 50,000 km/h," says space engineer Yoav Landsman, owner of the "Critical Mass" blog. "It eventually hit the ground about 70 km from the city where the damage was caused. The impact was in the lake, in an uninhabited area, so no damage was caused by the impact itself."
Diving teams searched for the meteor in the frozen lake water yesterday, but came up empty handed, due to the very turbidity of the water, and a very thick layer of thick mud at the bottom of the lake. Meteor hunters are already bidding more than $10,000 online for fragments of the large meteorite.
More it speaks and it comes
A little more than a day after the explosion in Russia, Cuban media reported on a meteor seen in the sky of the island. Residents reported a flash of light and a shock wave over the city of Rodas, but there were no reports of casualties or damage. As far as is known, there is no connection between the two meteor events, but they illustrate the fact that we live in a dangerous environment. "With current technology, we have no way to identify such small bodies in advance," says Landsman. "It is possible, if enough efforts are invested in creating such an infrastructure. Today, most resources are invested in identifying things that can destroy the entire population of the earth, not in small objects, which in the worst case cause local damage."
The meteor events are connected to an asteroid that passed on Saturday night relatively very close to Earth - about 28,000 km from here. Here, too, there is no direct connection between the things, but it is possible that the sequence of events will somehow advance the required global investment in a warning system against cosmic threats.
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Itzik,
From the videos it is easy to see that there was an explosion in mid-flight, and that the same explosion is responsible for the noise and the thrust that arrived some time later, as befits sound waves moving through air. In addition, in at least one of the videos you can see a connection between the explosion seen in flight and the direction of the shock wave - when windows were broken and together with them the metal frames were bent in a direction that corresponds to the explosion that took place in the middle of the smoke trail and not to the assumed continuation if it actually reached the ground at all after that.
Spring.
As far as I know, the spokesman for the meteorite search expedition in Russia clearly announced that the hole in the ice probably has nothing to do with the meteorite. Here is my reference
http://phys.org/news/2013-02-russia-halts-meteorite.html
His wording is a bit strange and so is the reasoning for stopping the search since the meteorite search forces are not an organic part of the civilian aid forces. Citizens are assisted by units trained to care for citizens, while searches in the lake are carried out by divers and diving equipment. How can divers and diving equipment help citizens?
If the spokesperson for the searches had announced that the searches are not urgent and the intense cold prevents the search from continuing, I would have been more convinced.
I have the feeling that there is too little information about what is happening in Russia, I have already heard bad information about the size of the meteorite. At first they said weight 10 tons, then they said weight 7000 tons.
I don't know about you, but from watching several dozen Russian videos of this phenomenon, I conclude that no part of the mysterious body landed on Earth. And why "mysterious body"? - because no one has yet found any sign that it was a meteor.
It seems to me that this body, I will call it simply a UFO because in my opinion it is still unidentified, did cross our atmosphere and created the supersonic boom [like that of a jet plane] but continued on outside the atmosphere on all its parts that separated from it in the explosion, or that continued to sail around him in the same direction.
Infrared video indicates about 7 parts that separated from the main body and continue in the same direction as it. What's more, a separate particle appears there even before the supersonic boom.
In no video did we see or hear any damage to the ground. What is seen is the sudden disappearance of the smoke trail, which explains the thought that the meteorite with all its fragments continued on and did not hit the ground at all.
If the astronomers hypothesized that the size of the explosion was about 30 times greater than Hiroshima, and if there had been an impact on the ground, I think, we would not have watched the videos, we would have heard about Tungaska number 2.
In total, a UFO passed...
They didn't say the hole in the ice wasn't related to the meteorite, they just said they didn't find it in the initial search and left it because they needed the manpower for more urgent purposes right now. It is clear that even if they find it, it will be small fragments.
איציק
The explosion was in the atmosphere at an altitude of 10 kilometers I think, the damages were only from the wave of the page which was not fatal because it was at a high altitude.
No large remnants of the meteor will be found. The hole in the ice lake is probably not related to the meteorite.
They may have found a small remnant of the meteorite made of iron (not sure, this news did not return).
The explosion was caused by the impact on the ground and there was no explosion in the atmosphere. You can also see it in the movie. If such an explosion had occurred in the atmosphere, the damage from the shock wave would have been much greater.