Chelyabinsk Meteor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c-0iwBEswE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0cRHsApzt8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36MEsWC1Pzc

astounding stuff. Nothing to do with the larger asteroid moving close later this evening?

Not according to astronomer Phil Plaitt:

I’m trying to piece together what happened from the videos. First of all, I do not think this is related in any way to the asteroid 2102 DA14! For one thing, this occurred about 16 hours before DA14 passes. At 8 kilometers per second that’s nearly half a million kilometers away from DA14. That puts it on a totally different orbit.

i'm going to ask a very stupid question but in that first video, why does it become dark suddenly at the 20s mark ? is it something to do with the camera or the meteor itself ?

It's the aperture on the camera catching up with the sudden decrease of light lvel after the meteor goes beyond the horizon

His feelings hurt, a jilted God took aim for Pope Benedict but alas his guidance signals got scrambled across the vast distance of space.

thanks ed, that's what seemed more likely but i just wanted to make sure

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=Iw38e3Xn2kk&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIw38e3Xn2kk

Don't understand the need for the APOCALYPSE NOW byline on that third link.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/e0b75835d58e9dd8be55203ea9d3b2a9/tumblr_mi9a4h96Uo1qzt4vjo1_500.gif

a screaming came across the sky amirite fellas

piiiiiiiiisssssss!
shit is crazy!
so outta here!

Yeah, I'd like to suck on some of that!

Meaty oar

that gif needs nyan cat music to really work imo

Coming after Russia's 2012 apocalypse panic, this can't be good.

Gotta say, though, having likely never seen anything quite like that, decades of Hollywood SFX nerds got it pretty much right!

Thinking the same thing

God, what the hell would happen if one of those things hit urban North Korea.

that gif needs nyan cat music to really work imo

― acid in the style of tenpole tudor (NickB), Friday, February 15, 2013 8:45 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

well I was bored so

http://meowteor.ytmnd.com/

hooray!

Speaking of mysterious meteors, how about the Tunguska event? I just saw something about it in lol History Today (today), this part was particularly ~striking~

The Soviet authorities edited out any such references to the event. It was not until 1967 that a shaman called Ivan Ivanovich Aksenov admitted he was only 30 miles south of the explosion. He said he saw ‘the Devil’ with two eyes in front and a fire behind, flying to the south. He observed that ‘The devil was going faster than airplanes now do. While flying, it was saying ‘troo-troo,’ but not loudly.’ He was so shaken that he prayed to Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.

thanking u for meowteor

so why couldn't Putin stop this thing?

He did stop it. With the Russian soil and/or windows.

In Soviet Russia, windows break meteor...

what a country!

Can someone get this kid to write a song about it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYHLHTUSwU0

Turns out it's the US

If everyone on the ground had been armed with meteors, that meteor wouldn't have stood a chance.

UK and Russia should swap LibDems.

thought they would have the kasparov penis-copter on standby for this sort of thing

meowteor!!

Speaking of mysterious meteors, how about the Tunguska event? I just saw something about it in lol History Today (today), this part was particularly ~striking~

The Tunguska damage was incredible. Huge numbers of people apparently thought the world was ending.

This might inspire me to finish off the last third of Sorokin's Ice trilogy.

Thank you! I will admit that I had never heard of it before today, but it sounds like there's no $ to figure out what actually happened because who cares/1908 but wouldn't it be kind of nice to know what happened? Just in case, I dunno, it ever happens again?

(Not that I expect anyone to throw government money at such a project, but you'd think there might be a wealthy oligarch/mafiyoso/benefactor out there looking to unload some cash in exchange for some scientific research?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

I think part of the problem was that it exploded before impact so there's not a great deal left to find. The area it destroyed was comfortably bigger than London but it was mostly just flattened / burned trees remaining.

I'm just saying that it would be nice to at least try to figure out what could have happened? Is it really a complete waste of time? If so, I'm surprised more people aren't throwing research money at it, ha.

I read a sci fi book called Singularity by Bill DeSmedt where the Tunguska event was caused by a microscopic black hole. It was pretty cool. He then did a podcast exploring the various theories about what the Tunguska event could have been called "Dr. Jack's Soapbox Seminars" which was also neat.

Probably going to screw this up, but:

http://en.es-static.us/upl/2013/02/relative_positions_asteroid_near_Earth_Scott_Manly_Armagh-Observatory_2-13-2013.png

Saw this yesterday. Thought it was cool.

very cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdoKEFsemvw

Remember this scare back in '04? Freaking 325 mile diameter!

http://www.examiner.com/article/nasa-says-don-t-worry-about-the-asteroid-apophis-striking-earth-2036

Wait, is that right? I remember the asteroid that hit during the end of the dinosaurs was only 6.5 miles in diameter.

6.5 miles? A mere skittle!

lol. Still trying to figure out if Apophis is really that freaking big. I saw two websites that confirmed the 325 mile diameter, and one that said it was the size of three football fields, so...

wow, those football fields must be huge

hey LL the NYT article on this had some more info on Tunguska:

Generations of scientists have studied that event, analyzing particles that were driven into the Earth’s surface as far away as the South Pole. An article published on the NASA Web site on June 30, 2008, the centennial of the Tunguska impact, said the object, weighing about 220 million pounds during its plunge, heated the surrounding air to 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit and exploded in a fireball that released the energy equivalent of 185 Hiroshima atomic bombs.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30jun_tunguska/

the object, weighing about 220 million pounds during its plunge, heated the surrounding air to 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit and exploded in a fireball that released the energy equivalent of 185 Hiroshima atomic bombs.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I mean
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ha! The scarier thing is that the Soviets built a bomb that was two and a half times more powerful than Tunguska.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

^^^this was fucked up

the object, weighing about 220 million pounds during its plunge, heated the surrounding air to 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit and exploded in a fireball that released the energy equivalent of 185 Hiroshima atomic bombs.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Friday, February 15, 2013 3:10 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

irl lol at this

i am only just catching up w/all this but i am really feeling the elif batuman piece at the nyer on the hypnotic appeal of dashboard cameras,

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/02/meteor-in-the-russian-sky.html

totally.. Watching dash-cam road trip vids are great hangover soothing fodder.

"Dash cams have become ubiquitous in today’s Russia, where road hazards range from “insane gridlock” to “large, lawless areas” habited by “police with a penchant for extortion and deeply frustrated drivers who want to smash your face,” and where courts rarely award damages without video evidence."

russia is insane

This entire planet is insane.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41v7HcPsKoL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

I question whether that telescope would work very well.

Dashboard cams are also the reason there are approximately 118323 parody versions of Serebro's Mama Lyuba video on YouTube.

Not sure Russia is quite as awful as the article suggests but, yeah, video evidence can be pretty important in accident claims.

russia is insane

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, February 15, 2013 3:28 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This entire planet is insane.

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Friday, February 15, 2013 3:30 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the entire universe is insane

You are insane.

Apophis is 350 m across, not km, not miles. Just big and near enough to get a name. You'll note that all the really big asteroids orbit at least 2.3 x as far from the sun as the Earth does, because the terrestrial planets ate all the nearer ones during their accretion phase.

Also, Tsar Bomba was just 7.4 Vietnam War bombing campaigns. The multi-megaton bombs were soon abandoned once more fission cores were produced by the superpowers, as they're too heavy for balistic missile delivery and cluster nuking an area with 150 kt W84 (and similar) warheads is more effective.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/more-than-1000-russians-injured-in-freaking-cooles,31321/

Newly Released Security Cam Video Shows Chelyabinsk Meteorite Impact in Lake Chebarkul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocME3KueHdY