Evansville Astronomy Expert Explains Russian Meteor Blast
By: Shalah Sasse
Updated: February 15, 2013
It's video that has grabbed the world's attention. A meteor streaked through the skies of Russia Friday morning injuring about 1,000 people. The fire ball was caught on camera.
It looked like the sky was falling and sounded like a war was beginning.
"Asteroids of this size are really difficult to see. They're faint and by the time you see them, they're right on top of us," Mitch Luman said.
A Russian meteor blast injured at least 1,000 people. The vast majority of injuries are not believed to be serious. The deafening blast caused panic. Officials say the meteor exploded with a flash and boom that shattered glass in buildings, and knocked down a wall at a factory.
"This meteor was moving at 33,000 miles per hour. Keep in mind, the speed of sound is only 768 miles per hour, so they actually saw this streak through the sky and then took a minute or two for the sound or the shock-wave to catch up and that's what caused all the damage," Chief Meteorologist Wayne Hart said.
"But the heating was so great that the front part was hot and the back part was cold that it couldn't withstand the forces of the heat and the thermal, it just exploded and the explosion was equal to many thousands of tons of dynamite," Luman said.
Astronomy expert, Mitch Luman says people shouldn't be surprised by this because there's 100 million objects of this size in the earth's orbit alone, and the earth is a tiny target. Nasa describing this as a tiny asteroid.
"About the size of a Harley that weighed maybe 10 tons, so there won't be a lot of material left over, but whatever it was made out of, it was iron and nickel and it was very durable because it came all the way through the atmosphere before it exploded," Luman said.
Luman says evacuation orders could be given if a large enough object is seen far enough a way, but today's bright white streak was small and tough to see. He says an event like this can be expected on the planet about once a decade.
This all happened just hours before an asteroid passed close to earth. Astronomers say the two events are not related.
It looked like the sky was falling and sounded like a war was beginning.
"Asteroids of this size are really difficult to see. They're faint and by the time you see them, they're right on top of us," Mitch Luman said.
A Russian meteor blast injured at least 1,000 people. The vast majority of injuries are not believed to be serious. The deafening blast caused panic. Officials say the meteor exploded with a flash and boom that shattered glass in buildings, and knocked down a wall at a factory.
"This meteor was moving at 33,000 miles per hour. Keep in mind, the speed of sound is only 768 miles per hour, so they actually saw this streak through the sky and then took a minute or two for the sound or the shock-wave to catch up and that's what caused all the damage," Chief Meteorologist Wayne Hart said.
"But the heating was so great that the front part was hot and the back part was cold that it couldn't withstand the forces of the heat and the thermal, it just exploded and the explosion was equal to many thousands of tons of dynamite," Luman said.
Astronomy expert, Mitch Luman says people shouldn't be surprised by this because there's 100 million objects of this size in the earth's orbit alone, and the earth is a tiny target. Nasa describing this as a tiny asteroid.
"About the size of a Harley that weighed maybe 10 tons, so there won't be a lot of material left over, but whatever it was made out of, it was iron and nickel and it was very durable because it came all the way through the atmosphere before it exploded," Luman said.
Luman says evacuation orders could be given if a large enough object is seen far enough a way, but today's bright white streak was small and tough to see. He says an event like this can be expected on the planet about once a decade.
This all happened just hours before an asteroid passed close to earth. Astronomers say the two events are not related.
