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Huge Meteor Explodes Over Russia

About 16 hours ahead of today's fly by. Curious coincidence, unless at some point the big one has had a chunk knocked off it (but which then stayed in a very similar orbit indeed).
 
Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.


da da daaaaaaaaah :)
 
Seems people reckon this hit in the wrong hemisphere to be associated with this evening's fly by. So really just an odd coincidence.
 
Hadron said:
About 16 hours ahead of today's fly by. Curious coincidence, unless at some point the big one has had a chunk knocked off it (but which then stayed in a very similar orbit indeed).
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That's what I was wondering. A collision with a satellite (working or not) or "space junk" could break it up and alter its path.

I went to sleep last night knowing that an asteroid was coming, and would pass through the places where we have stuff up there. And the first thing I saw when I woke up was video of stuff falling from the sky! What am I supposed to think?
 
Speed Daemon said:
That's what I was wondering. A collision with a satellite (working or not) or "space junk" could break it up and alter its path.
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Actually that doesn't worry me. A 46m lump of rock will barely notice any of the flimsy stuff we've put up there, and it will have far too much inertia to be deflected enough to make any difference on this pass.
 
Hadron said:
Actually that doesn't worry me. A 46m lump of rock will barely notice any of the flimsy stuff we've put up there, and it will have far too much inertia to be deflected enough to make any difference on this pass.
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Pretty much this. I mean, lets be honest here. With how fast and how big its traveling, it'll be like running over an acorn with your car. You might feel a bump...but your car will keep moving along.

This is all just (in my opinion) a reminder of how vast space is, and how powerful it can be. Not that I want to see anything destroyed, mind you. Satellites in space are awesome for a multitude of things, including images to use as wallpaper ;)

As long as it doesn't hit the moon and alter the moons course, everything will be fine.
 
Prinny said:
As long as it doesn't hit the moon and alter the moons course, everything will be fine.
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Even less worried about this :)

For one thing it'll come closer to us than to the moon. For another, the moon's been hit by much bigger stuff than this.

Would be cool if it happened on the near side where we could see it though! ;)
 
This is true, Hadron.

See, I'm always pondering the "What If" scenarios. Which I know the moon has been pelted by a lot (thank you moon, you saved our butts.) It's just hypothetical. I don't know how many people realize that without the moon, well, we'd be kinda screwed ;)

But yeah, I think it would be cool to see it. I have such a fascination with space and the physics behind it all. It's a truly amazing thing, when you stop and think about how vast the universe is. Then when you get into Googol years and whatnot...your brain more or less melts.
 
Blast wave from the explosion



The explosion



And the budget for searching for NEO's (Near Earth Asteroids) is miniscule.
 
Prinny said:
As long as it doesn't hit the moon and alter the moons course, everything will be fine.
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Anything big enough to alter the moon's orbit would have to be massive and/or traveling insanely fast. It'd likely obliterate it more than anything.
 
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