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Meteorite entered the atmosphere above Russia.


blackNwhites

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L9iUaCKr6Mw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7GRqK3OWLqs

A meteor crashing in Russia's Ural mountains has injured at least 950 people, as the shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings.

Most of those hurt, in the Chelyabinsk region where the meteor fell, suffered cuts and bruises but at least 46 remain in hospital.

A fireball streaked through the clear morning sky, followed by loud bangs.

President Vladimir Putin said he thanked God no big fragments had fallen in populated areas.

A large meteor fragment landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a town in Chelyabinsk region.

The meteor's dramatic passing was witnessed in Yekaterinburg, 200km (125 miles) to the north, and in Kazakhstan, to the south....continued in link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21468116

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And if you have good binoculars, you might see an asteroid wizzing past us tonight. But it won't hit earth, so please people, no panic buying.

Scary stuff in Russia, not something you see everyday is it, that? Awesome to watch though.

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Meteoroid?

A rock from out of space!

When in space it's a meteoroid, when in the atmosphere and glows bright it is still a meteoroid, but the visible part and the super heated particles are called a meteor. It's remnants that reach the ground are called meteorites.

To be simple about it:

In space: A meteoroid

In the atmosphere: A meteor

On/in the ground: A meteorite

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And if you have good binoculars, you might see an asteroid wizzing past us tonight. But it won't hit earth, so please people, no panic buying.

Scary stuff in Russia, not something you see everyday is it, that? Awesome to watch though.

Just imagine if the Tunguska event happened somewhere near a town or city. Now that would have been terrifying.

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What's that?

In 1908 there was an enormous explosion in a remote part of Siberia. Modern estimations put the blast at roughly the equivalent of 10-15 megatons of TNT, or roughly 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It levelled an area of about 2,000 square kilometres of Forest, or roughly an area 4/5ths the size of Derbyshire. It is thought that it was a large meteoroid or comet fragment.

In astronomical terms this impact would be considered relatively minor. Compared with the collision event that caused the Chicxulub crater, currently considered to be the cause of the dinosaur extinction event, the Tunguska event doesn't even rate. To put in terms of relative blast power in terms of comparable tons of TNT:

Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima: 16,000 tons

Tunguska Event: ~15,000,000 tons

Chicxulub crater event: ~100,000,000,000,000 tons

...so, approaching 10 million times more massive.

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Reading reports about it since, this was a pretty damn serious object. The air burst occurred about 30 to 50 km up, had it occurred lower the region would have suffered far worse damage than has happened. It's blast was roughly equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT, or roughly 30 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The object was also not detected before it entered the atmosphere...

From reports, around 1200 people have been injured, with at least 2 in serious condition, over 3000 buildings over multiple cities have been damaged. This was a series collision event, the most serious in the modern era in fact.

Just to put the altitude of the air blast into context, the Tunguska Event's air blast was around 5-10 km, in comparison to the 30-50 km here.

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