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Fragments of at least one meteorite fell in the Chelyabinsk region some 930 miles east of Moscow, causing flashes in the morning sky and sharp explosions, Russian officials said Friday. The office of the governor of the region in the Ural Mountains said in a statement that many calls about injuries and damage to buildings had been received, but there were no immediate confirmed figures or specific reports on damage. Ref. USAToday
A lot of talk about asteroids lately. That's a real challenge for our species because, despite the announcements and the many attempts to minimize the problem, I feel that we are still unprepared to face or avoid a major collision. Our best weapon is still the atmosphere of our planet.
Its a case of size matters. The bigger it is the harder it is to stop. The little rocks get burned up and the bigger ones create a nice air show but something truly large will just be unstoppable. Still I wish I was in the Chelyabinsk region to see the meteorite. Anyone know if meteorite samples were collected?
I agree with you. Anything large enough to make it to the surface would just be unstoppable, no matter what they say in the tv shows. This is maybe one of the bigger challenges for our researchers in the near future: find a way to minimize, if not avoid, dangerous collisions. At the moment we are helpless.
Reading the news about this event, looks like most of the wounded people, if not all, got hurt because of flying glass shards and not meteorite fragments. Many got injured because they got close to the windows to see the strange light shortly before the shock wave shattered them into pieces.
If explained properly, this unfortunate event could greatly help to avoid similar problems in the case of a new meteorite shower in the future. Curious enough, the site of the accident is only a few thousand kilometers away from the site of the last major meteorite impact recorded, in the early 20th century.
1000 People Injured
With a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, a meteor blazed across the western Siberian sky Friday and exploded with the force of 20 atomic bombs, injuring more than 1,000 people as it blasted out windows and spread panic in a city of 1 million. Ref. Source 7
Wow, that is some meteorite, I hope these people who got injured will be well taken care of and try to survive. These kind of cases are extremely rare because meteorites often pass the Earth without colliding it, but this time there is one that did collide with this planet, I hope these kind of situations don't occur often.