Source: The Watchers - 2/15/13, By Adonai
A bright flash was seen in the Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and Sverdlovsk regions, Russia’s Republic of Bashkiria and in northern Kazakhstan early morning local time on February 15, 2013. Officials mention meteor shower and say that it began after a large meteorite disintegrated above the Urals mountain range and partially burned up in the lower atmosphere – resulting in fragments falling earthwards throughout the Chelyabinsk region. Numerous YT videos show unusual trail accompanied by several loud booms. Many reports mention shattered windows. Lifenews tabloid said that at least one piece of the fallen object caused damage on the ground in Chelyabinsk, according to preliminary reports, it crashed into a wall near a zinc factory, disrupting the city’s Internet and mobile service.
During the morning Russian military discovered a 6-meter crater from Urals meteorite, normal background radiation was reported at the crater. Russian Academy of Science said the meteorite weighed 10 tons before it entered Earth’s atmosphere. Lifenews reported, quoting a source in Emergencies Ministry, that before falling to earth, the meteorite exploded nine times, starting at an altitude of 55 kilometers.
Some believe that a long waited asteroid 2012 DA14 flyby scheduled for late afternoon today (UTC time) is somehow related to this incident though at this time it is unknown what exactly happened in in the sky above Russia today.
Russian space agency Roskosmos said: “According to preliminary estimates, this space object is of non-technogenic origin and qualifies as a meteorite. It was moving at a low trajectory with a speed of about 30 km/s.”
RT reported that according to unconfirmed reports, the meteorite was intercepted by an air defense unit at the Urzhumka settlement near Chelyabinsk. A missile salvo reportedly blew the meteorite to pieces at an altitude of 20 kilometers. The military had nothing to do with the aerial meteorite explosion, the Urals Emergency Ministry said: “Russia’s defense ministry took no action connected to the incident. No aircrafts has been registered in the air at the given period of time.”
Residents of the town of Emanzhilinsk, some 50 kilometers from Chelyabinsk, said they saw a flying object that suddenly burst into flames, broke apart and fell to earth, and that a black cloud had been seen hanging above the town. Witnesses in Chelyabinsk said the city’s air smells like gunpowder.
The regional Emergency Ministry said the phenomenon was a meteorite shower, but locals have speculated that it was a military fighter jet crash or a missile explosion.
The first reports came in around 7:55 a.m. local time (1:55 UTC).
At 8:03 UTC RT reported there are up to 250 injured, 3 in critical condition. Some reports mention that up to 400 people asked medical attention. By 12:25 UTC the number of injured people rose to 725.
Oleg Malkov, an aerospace scientist at Moscow State University, told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper that the meteorite went undetected by space scanners, likely because it was coming from the direction of the Sun. “We can only register stones coming from the direction of the night sky,” he explained. Malkov confirmed that the meteor shower in the Urals was not connected to the 2012 DA14 asteroid that will approach Earth in a few hours.
The Mayak nuclear complex near the town of Ozersk was not affected by the incident, according to reports. Mayak, one of the world’s biggest nuclear facilities that used to house plutonium production reactors and a reprocessing plant, is located 72 kilometers northwest of Chelyabinsk.
Whats also interesting is that a fire ball was reported over the sky of Japan yesterday (February 14, 2013). Video can be found at the end of this article.
Japan fireball metorite a day before asteroid 2012 DA14 flyby
Links:
- LIVE RT Updates: http://rt.com/news/russia-meteor-meteorite-asteroid-chelyabinsk-291/
- Videos & Photos: http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/
- How meteor showers emerge – Infographic: http://en.ria.ru/infographics/20100731/160020528.html
