Guest Post – Russian Meteor
Every now and then, one of my friends in astronomy write something that sums up my views on a topic better than I could myself. When that someone is Neville Young, it happens more often than not, and his recent newsletter on the Russian Meteor, which is currently estimated at having had a mass of 3000 tonnes and a size of 15 meters across, is one example. He has very kindly allowed me to reprint it here, for your benefit:
This meteorite over Russia was the first celestial event of this magnitude since the digital camera came of age. The previous event of similar significance was the Tunguska impact in 1908 when there were few film cameras, no digital cameras and almost no humans in the locality to wonder what had hit them.
I have combined a number of video clips into one video showing the smoke trail, the brilliant flash of light, the intense sound of the shock wave, the shattering of window panes, the panic-stricken screams of school children and office workers being thrown to the floor from the force of the blast.
Acknowledgements and thanks go to those who were lucky enough to witness the sensational event, for having the presence of mind to capture the visuals and for sharing them with their fellow Earthlings.
The video can be viewed here.
Cheers – Neville