This thread could use a better title. I almost posted the news on the OTC boards thinking that nobody had covered it yet, and found this one on the second sweep through the Yack Fest.
But back to the news... have you guys SEEN how damned bright that thing was on entry?! It actually illuminated parts of Russia that were still in the early dawn to the point of looking like it was the middle of a Summer day!
Also, I'm noticing that a lot of the better videos showing the meteor are being pulled, all of a sudden: now it's just the short, imcomplete videos that MSNBC and other sites have put together that are left. Is it the Russian government doing that, or are the posters just wising up and realizing that they could sell these vids online?
And apparently the OTC topic on the matter is gone. Oh well, this was a more appropriate venue for such stuff because shenanigans.
How scary is that?!
And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)
Jonah Falcon
Do you think there's something about the atmosphere over Siberia or Russia that causes asteroids to explode rather than strike like the Arizona crater?
Jonah Falcon
Large asteroids crashing to Earth explode all the time wherever they are located when moving fast enough. There was one in New Mexico and another in Indonesia a few years back.
The rocks that actually hit the planet are often chunks of an asteroid that exploded higher up or farther away from where it's noticed by people.
Well, there is the very small possibility that some sort of Russian air-defense system took it down, but you'd think they'd give their own people a heads up even despite wanting to keep it secret.
The more likely answer though is that most meteors don't even manage to survive atmospheric entry long enough to strike the surface, except for extremely small fragments no bigger than pebbles or golf balls. I think you can even just barely see the meteor begin to fall apart at one point in one of the videos, particularly one of the dashboard camera views.
In comparison, the one that KO'd the dinosaurs was estimated to be six miles across when it hit.
Jonah Falcon
The Chicxulub meteor was the size of Mt. Everest.
Meaning, when the leading edge of the meteor hit the Earth, the top end was still 30,000 feet in the air.
Jonah Falcon
Mein fuhrer, I can walk!
Happy New Year!
The title is in bad taste don't you think seeing as the dead and injured are still being counted.
hashtagsarestupid
I don't think anyone died. Only 46 people are still in hospital, and there's been nothing to suggest any serious injuries.
And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)
Shut up!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yeah, from what I read most of the injuries were cuts from broken glass, from the shockwave shattering windows and whatnot.
Happy New Year!
Okay that's good to hear, the initial news reports here were giving casualties in the double digits.
edited 15th Feb '13 5:07:48 PM by joeyjojo
hashtagsarestupid
Cephalopod Lothario
Dammit, Tesla, I just cleaned up the place.
Anyhow..the Great Old Ones! They arrive! La! La! Cthulhu Fhtagn! I live to serve (and molest with my tentacles!)!
Mmm, calamari.
edited 15th Feb '13 8:41:42 PM by DrunkGirlfriend
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian
^ Can we have it with Honey BBQ and teriyaki?
Cephalopod Lothario
Well, at least my tentacles will be sliding down someone's throat tonight...
WAIT PLEASE DON'T EAT ME IN A NON-SEXUAL MANNER! I HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!
I'm Only Sleeping
CAPTAIN MEMEFACE
Cthulu wants to stick his tentacles down someone's throat?
Must be Japanese.
WELCOME TO MEME HELL!!!
So he's a Japanese squid? Well now we know how to deal with him. You deal with him the same way the Japanese deal with everything in the water that's not a submarine: Eat it.
Jonah Falcon
Final estimates: 50 foot meteor weighing 7000 pounds, created a 20 foot crater (small, because the thing was so high in the air when it exploded), and released 300 megatons of TNT power.
It's the biggest explosion by an extraterrestrial source on Earth since... the Tunguska Event.
Jonah Falcon
300 megatons? Umm... That's a lot really. If it had been that big of a yield there would be pretty much nothing left of roughly an eighty mile radius of the epicentre of the explosion.
According to wiki, the yield was roughly 500 kilotonnes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Russian_meteor_event
Still a sizable bang, but not a city eraser like what 300 Mt would have been.
Seems like another meteor exploded over Russia. Not as powerful as Tunguska, tho.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/15/3991132/russia-meteorite-explosion-reported
Jonah Falcon