# Why did nobody seem to have seen Friday's meteor coming. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 16, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522 "2013-02-16T18:38:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TheCrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@TheCrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCrow)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/1 "2013-02-16T18:38:32Z")
As you may know, a meteor hit Russia and it was a kind of dangerous meteor. Why did nobody realize the meteor? If they had realized, why did no one do anything about it? Why didn’t they try to prevent it from being dangerous? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/2 "2013-02-16T18:41:54Z")
Because on a cosmic scale, it was microscopic (about 50 feet in diameter). There is no tool in use that would detect such a small object, coming in on a random vector from any direction of the sphere, except by accident. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/3 "2013-02-16T18:41:57Z")
Even if they did see it, what measures could anyone have done to prevent it from being dangerous? ---
**Author:** ![TheCrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a6a055/32.png) [@TheCrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCrow)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/4 "2013-02-16T18:48:44Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Even if they did see it, what measures could anyone have done to prevent it from being dangerous? They could evacuate the area. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/5 "2013-02-16T18:50:16Z")
It was too small to have been seen before. Current estimates put it at about 15 metres diameter, only about a quarter of the diameter of the asteroid 2012 DA14 which passed by much later that day. There must be significant numbers of smaller objects which pass the Earth without hitting it all the time and we don’t see them; I can only urge that a program is put into place that could detect the smaller ones too. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/6 "2013-02-16T18:52:58Z")
> [@TheCrow](#): > > They could evacuate the area. Actual question: Is it even possible to plot the impact point of such an object with any reasonable degree of precision and far enough in advance to make evacuation possible? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/7 "2013-02-16T18:53:43Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > I can only urge that a program is put into place that could detect the smaller ones too. [This foundation](http://b612foundation.org/) is trying to do just that. From their web page: The B612 Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization dedicated to opening up the frontier of space exploration and protecting humanity from asteroid impacts. On June 28, 2012, the Foundation announced its plans to build and operate the first privately funded, launched, and operated interplanetary mission – an infrared space telescope to be placed in orbit around the Sun to discover, map, and track asteroids whose orbits approach Earth and threaten humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/8 "2013-02-16T19:10:48Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > I can only urge that a program is put into place that could detect the smaller ones too. Arthur C. Clarke suggested such around 1973. We do have a system that will detect most larger (100m) objects, but tracking smaller ones that are still capable of doing damage is an orders-of-magnitude problem ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/9 "2013-02-16T19:22:14Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Actual question: Is it even possible to plot the impact point of such an object with any reasonable degree of precision and far enough in advance to make evacuation possible? Even if you could, I don’t think it would be useful — it’s my understanding that most of the injuries were from the shockwave that resulted from the explosion of the meteor in the sky, before fragments impacted the Earth. While given a path and velocity I’m sure you could calculate an impact point, I don’t know that you can reliably predict when and where a meteor will lose enough integrity to explode in the sky. In other words, if a meteor is traveling west to east over the U.S. and its trajectory indicates that New York City is going to have a bad day, it’s not much use to evacuate Manhattan if it explodes over Chicago and injures millions who expected a nice light show. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/10 "2013-02-16T19:47:46Z")
[This asteroid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_TC3) was much smaller - only 2-5 meters, or 1/7 to 1/3 of the diameter and 9-56 times less cross-sectional area, yet was detected with two days’ lead time: > [@](#): > > 2008 TC3 (Catalina Sky Survey temporary designation 8TA9D69) was a meteoroid 2 to 5 meters (7 to 16 ft) in diameter and weighing 80 tonnes,[1] that entered Earth’s atmosphere on October 7, 2008, at 02:46 UTC (05:46 local time).[2] The meteoroid was notable as the first such body to be observed and tracked prior to reaching Earth. > > The meteoroid was discovered by Richard A. Kowalski at the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) 1.5-meter telescope at Mount Lemmon, north of Tucson, Arizona, USA, on October 6, 06:39 UTC, about 20 hours before the impact. Presumably, this one was discovered because they were doing a sky survey in the general direction it came from, suggesting that the Russian meteor wasn’t detected simply because nobody was looking there, not because we don’t have the capability to see such small objects. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/11 "2013-02-16T19:55:35Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Even if you could, I don’t think it would be useful — it’s my understanding that most of the injuries were from the shockwave that resulted from the **explosion** of the meteor in the sky, … (My bold) That can’t be the right word. “Fiery decomposition all at once?” ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/12 "2013-02-16T20:03:56Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > (My bold) > > That can’t be the right word. “Fiery decomposition all at once?” I don’t know what the mechanism is. If I had to make a WAG, I’d say the rock heats and at some point fragments into two or more pieces, providing more surface area for more heat to be generated. These pieces may be less structurally stable than the whole meteor was, and thus they fragment, and so on. After the first fracture, the rest could happen in seconds. It would increase the surface area available for heating pretty significantly and I’m guessing the big boom comes from the shockwave from the rapid expansion of air. So there may be a more precise word, but “explosion” surely seems to be [fairly widely accepted](https://www.google.com/search?q=meteor+explosion&oq=meteor+explosion&aqs=chrome.0.57j0j60l2j62l2.3540&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8). ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/13 "2013-02-16T20:07:20Z")
Demonstrated in these examples: > **[5 Meteor Videos That Prove Russians Don't Give a F#@k](https://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/5-meteor-videos-that-prove-russians-dont-give-f2340k)** > > Videos of apocalyptic destruction raining down from the heavens spontaneously flooded YouTube last night. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/14 "2013-02-16T20:52:05Z")
[QUOTE=Leo Bloom] Yet why did the Russians not freak out that they were under attack? [/QUOTE] Oh, you just have to give those crazy Russkis time to get in front of a microphone: [Meteor strike result of secret US weapons test: Russian MP](http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/16/289228/russia-meteor-strike-was-us-arms-test/) [QUOTE=Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky] A member of Russian parliament says the recent meteor strike in the Ural Mountains was in reality the result of secret testing of new weapons by the US. “Those were not meteorites; it was Americans testing their new weapons," said Russia’s controversial Liberal leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. "[US Secretary of State] John Kerry wanted to warn [Russia’s Foreign Minister] Lavrov on Monday, he was looking for Lavrov, and Lavrov was on a trip. He meant to warn Lavrov about a provocation against Russia,” Zhirinovsky added. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/15 "2013-02-16T21:04:04Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Even if you could, I don’t think it would be useful — it’s my understanding that most of the injuries were from the shockwave that resulted from the explosion of the meteor in the sky, before fragments impacted the Earth. Haven’t paid close attention (so I won’t be surprised if I am wrong), but I thought the shockwave was from a collosal sonic boom. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/16 "2013-02-16T21:08:05Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > (My bold) > > That can’t be the right word. “Fiery decomposition all at once?” aka an explosion. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/17 "2013-02-16T21:32:57Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > [This asteroid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_TC3) was much smaller - only 2-5 meters, or 1/7 to 1/3 of the diameter and 9-56 times less cross-sectional area, yet was detected with two days’ lead time: > > Presumably, this one was discovered because they were doing a sky survey in the general direction it came from, suggesting that the Russian meteor wasn’t detected simply because nobody was looking there, not because we don’t have the capability to see such small objects. Looks like it came from the [general direction of the sun](http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2013/02/asteroids-and-meteors-same-day/) which might have something to do with it not having been detected earlier. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/18 "2013-02-16T21:41:58Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Arthur C. Clarke suggested such around 1973. We do have a system that will detect most larger (100m) objects, but tracking smaller ones that are still capable of doing damage is an orders-of-magnitude problem But remember that Clarke’s SPACEGUARD had a few things going for it: [ul] [li]it was the result of a cataclysmic disaster[/li][li]it was backed by a planetwide government[/li][li]it was a necessary plot device.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/19 "2013-02-16T23:02:40Z")
> [@TheCrow](#): > > As you may know, a meteor hit Russia and it was a kind of dangerous meteor. Not really. > [@](#): > > Why did nobody realize the meteor? Why should anyone have? Space is big. Really big. Really really big; the meteorite was very small and very fast. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522/20 "2013-02-16T23:06:35Z")
In principle, we could detect an object like that and predict its impact point years in advance. In practice, though, that would require us to be extremely lucky, since it would involve coincidentally pointing a bunch of powerful telescopes at just the right spot in the sky before we could even discover it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-nobody-seem-to-have-seen-fridays-meteor-coming/650522.md?page=2)