Asteroid 'Hit Northern Russia'

Ananova ^ | 10-4-2002

[blam]

Asteroid 'hit northern Russia'

A large meteorite is thought to have smashed into a forest in a remote area of Russia.

Residents in the town of Bodaibo, in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, saw a large luminous body fall from the sky.

They say the impact caused the ground to shake and made a sound like thunder.

Flashes of bright light could be seen above the impact site, which was a long way from any settlements according to the Russian newspaper Pravda.

"Locals felt a strong shock, which could be comparable to an earthquake," said the report. "In addition to that, the people also heard a thunder-like sound."

Asteroid expert Dr Benny Peiser, from Liverpool John Moore's University, said: "If the eyewitness accounts are confirmed, this fact of an earth tremor together with thunder-like explosive sounds would indicate a rather significant impact event."

He said the incident occurred on the same day as the US House of Representatives debated the need to search for smaller asteroids and the danger of mistaking impacts for nuclear attacks.

At least 30 times a year, asteroids smash into the Earth's atmosphere and explode with the force of a nuclear bomb.

These smaller asteroids, between 200 and 500 metres wide, could potentially demolish a city with a direct hit or cause tsunamis - giant waves - capable of wiping out entire coastal areas if they land in the ocean.

Astronomers estimate there could be between 900 and 1,300 large asteroids measuring one kilometre or more in our part of the solar system, while the number of smaller bodies could amount to 50,000.

Story filed: 18:25 Friday 4th October 2002

[Alberta's Child]

There are a couple of possible ancient meteor craters in eastern Canada. The southeast corner of Hudson Bay has a remarkably circular shape that would indicate a possible impact site, with the Belcher Islands as the "cone" of the crater.

Also, the Manicouagan Reservoir is a peculiar circular body of water surrounding a large land mass that was formed behind the Daniel Johnson Dam in northeastern Quebec.

[Mr. Mojo]

Interesting; I hadn't heard of those.

Have you ever been to Meteor Crater in Arizona? An unbelievably impressive sight/site.

[Alberta's Child]

Manicouagan is particularly impressive, since the reservoir clearly defines the circular shape of the crater. The ancient crater is 65 miles or so from rim to rim, and the reservoir inside it is 45-50 miles across.

I've never been to Meteor Crater in Arizona, but from pictures I've seen I would guess it is much smaller than this.

[Mr. Mojo]

Meteor Crater is much smaller, of course. But it's also much more clearly indentfied as a crater. Manicouagan, if it was in fact formed by a meteor, is both far older and far larger.

Thanks for the very interesting photo. It almost looks like a giant caldera. I'll do a Google search to find out more.

[lepton]

I would think that the equivalent of 30 nukes a year going off in the atmosphere would be rather more noticeable than it is, wouldn't it?

I've seen one... Over PA a few years ago.

[Steve Van Doorn]

”At least 30 times a year, asteroids smash into the Earth's atmosphere and explode with the force of a nuclear bomb."

I know one hit in the Mediterranean sea a few months ago and in Greenland in 1997 but 30 times a year? I know at least 30 get absorbed into our atmosphere but to explode like a nuclear bomb?.

You seen one blow up over PA?

[lepton]

It was an amazing sight, but yes, one October about 4 or 5 years ago, I was driving on I-76 or I-81 (Near Carlisle), and saw one head west and then blow up. It was visible over the car headlights and the streetlamps.

We're talking high altitude bursts here, not ground-strikes, like in Greenland.

[the-ironically-named-proverbs2]

"I actually believe the angel Gabriel was the asteroid"

Thanks for the post. I'm sort of new to all of this. What is your opinion of Velikovsky? Also did you see the show about Venus on the Science channel last night. Very interesting stuff.

[TheLion]

Doesn't an asteroid become a meteor when it hits the atmosphere and then a meteorite when it strikes earth?

[blam]

"What is your opinion of Velikovsky? "

He got a lot of thing correct, however, his biggest problem was that he tried to explain everything.

No I didn't see the program on Venus.

[the-ironically-named-proverbs2]

Well, first off the show about Venus was narrated by William Shatner. I saw him on Hannity and Colmes a couple of weeks ago and was very surprised at how much of an enviro-nut he was. A good part of the show was spent talking about how Venus was a good example of what the Earth could become if we didn't cut back on the greenhouse gases. They did say that they really didn't know, but that was the slant. What I found interesting was the actual scientific information in the show- especially after reading Worlds in Collision. A couple of the facts that were interesting were:

Venus' atmosphere circles the planet at a much faster rate than Venus' rotation. (I forget the exact figures, and don't have time to look them up, but it was something like 5 days for the atmoshere to rotate once versus a couple hundred days for Venus to make one revolution)

Venus rotates backwards relative to the rest of the solar system.

The most interesting tidbit was the information about the surface of the planet. They said that the planet was evenly covered with around only 1,000 craters. They made the point that this was very unusual because it implied that the surface was much "younger" than they expected to find. They pretty much stated as fact that the planet was over 4 billion years old and this meant that the surface had been molten and then solidified in the recent past (the number that was thrown around was 1/2 billion years ago). I'm sure Velikovski would have had a field day with this information. I'm sure he would have taken issue with their conclusions as far as the age of the surface- and the "planet" itself. The scientists reeled off a list of puzzling facts about the planet, but never once mentioned Velikovski or that these puzzling facts just support his theories even more.

[blam]

Thanks. I've seen all this data and speculations from other sources over the years.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

[Calvin Locke]

I believe that about the time of the first Gulf War, there was a high altitude burst that set warning bells off in a number of
advanced nations, until it was identified as a meteor/asteroid induced explosion.

[Thunder90]

Test for radiatation. Could be a nuclear test.

[DavemeisterP]

Several years back I watched one of the large meteor showers(can't remember which one) out in the countryside. There were several meteors that went from one horizon all the way to the other horizon. This was in a flat part of Texas. There were several that actually came straight at us and exploded in a white flash like the concussion fireworks. At arms-length, the explosion was as big as the distance between your thumb and index fingers. Seemed like they made a boom, like a sonic boom, but they didn't happen very often.
I saw a meteor hit the ground a few years back, too. Very cool. It was dawn, I was driving on the interstate, and it passed though a layer of clouds right in front of me. It lit up the clouds green and then flashed purple and red and several other colors real fast, and then came out the bottom side and passed behind the horizon. It flashed when it hit on the far side. Turned out later that several other people I know saw it and it had fallen about 5 miles from me. As far as I know, no one ever found the meteorite, although there really wouldn't be anyone around there that would go look.(REAL small town America.)

[SunkenCiv]

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[txhurl]

I had a dream of this.