One news blurb I read it was estimated at ten tons, but that could later change. Ten tons ain’t much. By my crude estimates, maybe a ball 6 or so feet across? Shows what a little speed can do for you.
Sheesh, the Mythbusters’ aim was waaaaaaayyy off this time!
It’s almost like there’s a relationship between mass and velocity as it relates to energy.
Bad astronomer says not related to the large meteor flyby.
Yeah, nice try, Einstein. :rolleyes:
The taiga itself is sparsely populated. But thanks to the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the industrialization programs of the 19th and 20th centuries, Siberia is more populated than you might imagine, at least along one narrow belt. You travel from Moscow to Vladivostok, and its one village/town/city after another.
From what I’ve seen of northern Canada, it’s really quite empty (and more inhospitable than Siberia).
He’s vague, but says that it’s coming fro m the wrong direction, which would clinch it, although I’d like if he gave more details.
He says “way too early”, which doesn’t obvious imply “no connection” to me. The Perseids, for instance, go on for weeks, yet they’re clearly related.
That dashboard cam footage is amazing. And we should have known this was coming when America elected a black president. When will people learn from disaster movies?
I can’t be the only person who saw how good the footage was and thought, “hoax,” right?
I’m amazed it’s legit, but… it is.
How long before the loons come out of the woodwork?
Yeah, how will the Phelps clan or other loony fundies spin this?
Those people who say wrong direction - isn’t the Earth moving as well? Maybe the meteor was almost out of Earth’s path, and Earth ran into it. It’s as if Earth were a car, this meteor was almost done crossing the road when it got hit by the driver’s side (N hemisphere). DA14, which started crossing later, misses hitting the back of the car. Both meteors could be moving in the same direction.
The loons never go back into the woodwork at this point. That’s especially true on the Internet.
This must be related to the selection of a new Pope, right?
I imagine a lot of the dialog is just along the lines of “WTF was that!?”, but if anyone else can understand anything interesting in the dialog of the videos, I am curious what they say. Do some think it is a missile, or is it understood as a meteor?
Come on. Have the loons ever gone back INTO the woodwork? =)
Mostly, they’re just asking where it came from and describing how and where they first saw it. I don’t think any of them were afraid it was a missile, though some might have initially thought a plane had crashed.
Most of the voices have very regional and/or blue-collar accents, making it hard for non-native speakers especially to understand (but I’ll bet my ex and my daughter could).
They’re also quite hyper and talking very fast, which again makes them harder to understand.
Wow! We haven’t heard from Mad Vlad for a LONG time! He got a lot of press coverage in the early '90s, but even then he was regarded as something of a pathetic joke.
Crawling out of the woodwork, indeed… :rolleyes:
IANA Astronomer, but here’s my understanding. The Perseids, and other annual meteor showers happen because the Earth’s orbit passes through a big cloud of space junk. It’s always “sitting” there, relatively. 2012DA14 is coming from a long elliptical orbit. It just so happens to be crossing our orbit at the same time we are.
So to use the car analogy, the Perseids are like driving through a parking lot and bumping into a bunch of cars. 2012DA14 is like another car passing through an intersection just after you did. If this meteor was really on the same trajectory as the asteroid, it would’ve passes through the “intersection” long before we did. So don’t think of it as too early, think of it as not in the right spot.