Friday, February 15, 2013

Bad Astronomer on the Russian meteor

BREAKING: Huge Meteor Explodes Over Russia.

Phil Plait has an excellent collection of Youtube videos up at the above post showing the Russian meteor.

He also explains that it is unlikely to be associated with the asteroid due to skirt the Earth tomorrow morning; but as he says, it's quite a coincidence.

And quite scary when you consider this meteor would not have been so big, yet the shock wave seems to have broken a lot of glass.

Update:   How can I not embed one of the compilation clips for this fantastic looking event:



Also - isn't it weird how, in all of these clips, you don't see cars stopping and folks looking at the sky?  Are Russians so pessimistic (or phlegmatic) that something that has a fair resemblance to a morning nuclear strike just causes them to shrug their shoulders?   "Oh, Viktor, if we're lucky, maybe work will finish early today."

Further Update:   I dunno, the world seems to be a dangerous place this week.   Lightning strikes on the Vatican, asteroids passing so close I think I felt the breeze off it, and meteors.   Time to consider this important question from 1980 which I stumbled across last night:



(And readers might also be amused to read the top comment about that clip on the Youtube site.)

Update:   for reasons I can't work out, on my Android tablet only, this second clip sometimes comes up as Blue Oyster Cult, not the intended Safety Dance by Men Without Hats.)  Why would that be?

No comments: