Friday, February 15, 2013

Russian Fireball Goes Boom!!!!!!

Citizens of Chelyabinsk, Russia witnessed a meteor flying through the atmosphere around 9:30 in the morning local time yesterday. The meteor lit up the sky and was brighter than the Sun, leaving smoke trails in the sky. A sonic boom echoed across the area, the shock wave breaking glass as it passed over the land. For those unfamiliar with sonic booms, this phenomenon occurs when an object is moving faster than the speed of sound, causing multiple sound waves to become compressed together. As the compressed sound waves travel past an observer on the ground, a loud boom is heard. Check out these videos of people in Chelyabinsk who managed to record the incident here.

Unfortunately, as of my writing this post, much of the information from various sources is still trying to be confirmed, and there is still much that is not currently available. The sources below are all that I have been able to find on it so far, since much of the story is still unfolding. It is likely that most of you reading this will be linking to the articles I'm linking to after they have been able to update their own posts -- meaning, I don't have much information in this post presently because they have little information as of this posting; however, each author has noted that they will be posting updates as they receive them. Should I stumble across anything else myself, I shall post a follow-up here as well.

Be sure to watch these videos! Don't have the volume too loud though, because when the sonic boom occurs, it is much louder than the rest of the sound on the videos!!!!

Sources:

  1. From Quarks to Quasars
  2. Bad Astronomy
  3. RT.com
  4. Zyalt - Live Journal


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