Meteor injures 1,000 in Russia
Source: Agencies |
February 16, 2013, Saturday
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A METEOR streaked through the sky and exploded yesterday over Russia's Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring 1,000 people. The spectacle deeply frightened thousands, with some elderly women declaring the world was coming to an end.
Chelyabinsk health chief Marina Moskvicheva said 985 people in her city had asked for medical assistance. The Interfax news agency quoted her as saying 43 were hospitalized.
The Russian Academy of Sciences said the meteor - estimated to be about 10 tons - entered Earth's atmosphere going at least 54,000 kph. It shattered about 30-50 kilometers above the ground, releasing several kilotons of energy above the Ural Mountains.
Amateur video broadcast on Russian television showed an object speeding across the sky just after sunrise, leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash.
"There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million about 1,500 kilometers east of Moscow.
"We saw a big burst of light, then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud thundering sound," he said.
The explosions broke an estimated 100,000 square meters of glass, city officials said.
The city administration said 758 people sought medical care after the explosions and most were injured by shards of glass. Athletes at a city sports arena were among those cut up by the flying glass. It was not immediately clear if any people were struck by space fragments.
Another Chelyabinsk resident, Valya Kazakov, said some elderly women started crying out that the world was ending.
Chelyabinsk officials said 3,000 buildings in the city were damaged by the shock wave, including a zinc factory where part of the roof collapsed.
Small pieces of space debris - usually parts of comets or asteroids - that are on a collision course with Earth are called meteoroids. They become meteors when they enter Earth's atmosphere. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the surface of Earth they are called meteorites.
Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are traveling much faster than the speed of sound. Injuries on the scale reported yesterday, however, are extraordinarily rare.
The meteor hit less than a day before the asteroid 2012 DA14 is to make the closest recorded pass of an asteroid to Earth - about 27,600 kilometers. But the European Space Agency said there was no connection.
Some fragments fell in a reservoir outside the town of Cherbakul, the regional governor's office said. A 6-meter-wide crater was found in the same area, which could come from space fragments striking the ground, the news agency cited military spokesman Yaroslavl Roshchupkin as saying.
Donald Yeomans, manager of the US Near Earth Object Program in California, said he thought it was probably "an exploding fireball event."
"If the reports of ground damage can be verified, it might suggest an object whose original size was several meters in extent before entering the atmosphere, fragmenting and exploding due to the unequal pressure on the leading side versus the trailing side (it pancaked and exploded)," Yeoman said in an email.
"It is far too early to provide estimates of ... the original size," he said.
The site of yesterday's spectacular show is about 5,000 kilometers west of Tunguska, which 1908 was the site of the largest recorded explosion of a space object plunging to Earth. That blast, attributed to a comet or asteroid fragment, is generally estimated to have been about 10 megatons; it leveled some 80 million trees.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the incident showed the need for leading world powers to develop a system to intercept objects falling from space.
"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said.
Chelyabinsk health chief Marina Moskvicheva said 985 people in her city had asked for medical assistance. The Interfax news agency quoted her as saying 43 were hospitalized.
The Russian Academy of Sciences said the meteor - estimated to be about 10 tons - entered Earth's atmosphere going at least 54,000 kph. It shattered about 30-50 kilometers above the ground, releasing several kilotons of energy above the Ural Mountains.
Amateur video broadcast on Russian television showed an object speeding across the sky just after sunrise, leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash.
"There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million about 1,500 kilometers east of Moscow.
"We saw a big burst of light, then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud thundering sound," he said.
The explosions broke an estimated 100,000 square meters of glass, city officials said.
The city administration said 758 people sought medical care after the explosions and most were injured by shards of glass. Athletes at a city sports arena were among those cut up by the flying glass. It was not immediately clear if any people were struck by space fragments.
Another Chelyabinsk resident, Valya Kazakov, said some elderly women started crying out that the world was ending.
Chelyabinsk officials said 3,000 buildings in the city were damaged by the shock wave, including a zinc factory where part of the roof collapsed.
Small pieces of space debris - usually parts of comets or asteroids - that are on a collision course with Earth are called meteoroids. They become meteors when they enter Earth's atmosphere. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the surface of Earth they are called meteorites.
Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are traveling much faster than the speed of sound. Injuries on the scale reported yesterday, however, are extraordinarily rare.
The meteor hit less than a day before the asteroid 2012 DA14 is to make the closest recorded pass of an asteroid to Earth - about 27,600 kilometers. But the European Space Agency said there was no connection.
Some fragments fell in a reservoir outside the town of Cherbakul, the regional governor's office said. A 6-meter-wide crater was found in the same area, which could come from space fragments striking the ground, the news agency cited military spokesman Yaroslavl Roshchupkin as saying.
Donald Yeomans, manager of the US Near Earth Object Program in California, said he thought it was probably "an exploding fireball event."
"If the reports of ground damage can be verified, it might suggest an object whose original size was several meters in extent before entering the atmosphere, fragmenting and exploding due to the unequal pressure on the leading side versus the trailing side (it pancaked and exploded)," Yeoman said in an email.
"It is far too early to provide estimates of ... the original size," he said.
The site of yesterday's spectacular show is about 5,000 kilometers west of Tunguska, which 1908 was the site of the largest recorded explosion of a space object plunging to Earth. That blast, attributed to a comet or asteroid fragment, is generally estimated to have been about 10 megatons; it leveled some 80 million trees.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the incident showed the need for leading world powers to develop a system to intercept objects falling from space.
"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said.
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