Posted on 02/15/2013 12:34:43 AM PST by Islander7
A series of explosions in the skies of Russia’s Urals region, reportedly caused by a meteorite shower, has sparked panic in three major cities. Witnesses said that houses shuddered, windows were blown out and cellphones have stopped working.
According to unconfirmed reports, the meteorite was intercepted by an air defense unit at the Urzhumka settlement near Chelyabinsk. A missile salvo reportedly blew the meteorite to pieces at an altitude of 20 kilometers.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
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The pictures and video at the link are incredible.
Meteroite that is iron and sulfer ?
Lots of comments and incredible videos in general chat. Looks like just one meteor that exploded in the atmosphere. The notion that the Russians shot it down are absurd.
I have seen “Earth grazers” before, but this was really something. Reportedly, the meteorite just about wiped out a large zinc factory.
Where are YOU from? Detroit? Chicago? That's what all the pictures look like except for the smoke trails and a couple of streaming lights. Could be ANY low-rent neighborhood/project/slums from the pics.
Then in the first couple of paragraphs, they claim to have 'intercepted' it, whatever "it" was and blown it into pieces. Yeah, and kim-jung-ill plays a perfect game of golf too. Not to mention first person on the moon or so he claims.
Real meteorites travel several times the speed of sound -I would LOVE to know what kind of missile they threw at it to blow it up. Or maybe they just were quick on the slingshots that day?
Sounds like you haven’t seen the videos of this thing. Absolutely incredible. In at least two videos I saw, the photographer is filming a peculiar looking contrail overhead, russian chatting can be heard in the background, when KABLAM! what sounds like a stick of dynamite goes off which knocks the person and their camera to the ground, with sounds of shattering windows and car alarms going off. Incredible is a mild word for what I saw.
If they tried in their surprise and panic to fire missiles they may have dropped air defense missile junk onto the area below. Iraq used to kill their own people trying to “defend” their SAM sites when all the junk they fired up came back down on top of them.
“Where are YOU from? Detroit? Chicago? ...”
I wasn’t referring to the architecture or the accuracy of the Russian media.
“Looks like just one meteor that exploded in the atmosphere”
I don’t think it exploded or hit the ground — it looks like it entered the atmosphere and left it again — in an almost straight line. I’ll bet it was big, too. Perhaps ten meters in diameter.
A few miles closer, and it would have exploded or impacted.
I just read that a Russian space observatory official says that the meteor was not associated with asteroid 2012 DA14. He also said no one spotted it coming because it was approaching from the direction of the sun.
SkyNewsBreak Reuters: 500 people have been injured in meteor shower in Chelyabinsk area of Russia
Well, meteors can certainly skip off the atmosphere back into space, but the brilliance of the flash suggests to me that the meteor did explode and that its remnants, i.e., meteorites, hit the ground causing property damage, e.g., at the Peoples Zinc Factory.
Of course, I am in Georgia (USA) so I don’t know.
Latest report is over 500 minor injuries, four critical.
All those broken windows in the middle of winter are going to cause immense problems.
More vids here:
Drudge link smelled like a hoax.
“Real meteorites travel several times the speed of sound”
Your main point is entirely correct, but off by a few orders of magnitude. SAM’s can knock out targets traveling several times the speed of sound, about 750 mph or so.
“When the Patriot system was first designed, the primary targets were Soviet aircraft and cruise missiles travelling at speeds around MACH 2, and only operating at a few hours at a time. However, in Operation Desert Storm, they were deployed as static defences (operating continuously), tracking and intercepting Scud missiles travelling at speeds of approximately MACH 5.6 Consequently, the U.S. army had to learn how to adapt the Patriot for targets of much higher velocity.” http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/it/~alum/patriot_bug.html
However, meteorites travel at 7 to 45 miles per SECOND, roughly 30 to 200 times the speed of sound.
There is a multitude of stories and videos on this right now all over the news.
“skip off the atmosphere back into space”
I don’t think this one “skipped”. I think in just happened to be in the atmosphere for a few seconds on its relatively straight path. I don’t think this one exploded. There are videos showing the entire contrail, and it is about the same diameter for its entire length. I don’t think this one impacted either. It simply passed through the atmosphere and continued on its way.
I wonder why the report says they’re checking radiation levels. Don’t they know meteors don’t cause radiation?
Just a splinter of the big one that arrives later today: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130201315144.html
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