Russia Meteor's Origin Tracked Down

 

The Chelyabinsk meteor (labelled ChM) appears to have been on an elliptical orbit around the Sun before it collided with Earth.

Astronomers have traced the origin of a meteor that injured about 1,000 people after breaking up over central Russia earlier this month.

Using amateur video footage, they were able to plot the meteor's trajectory through Earth's atmosphere and then reconstruct its orbit around the Sun.

As the space rock burned up over the city of Chelyabinsk, the shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings.
 

More - Link >>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21579422

Source: British Broadcasting Corporation  News.

What Exploded over Russia?

Feb. 26, 2013:  When the sun rose over Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday, Feb. 15th, many residents of nearby Chelyabinsk already knew that a space rock was coming. Later that day, an asteroid named 2012 DA14 would pass by Earth only 17,200 miles above Indonesia. There was no danger of a collision, NASA assured the public.

Maybe that's why, when the morning sky lit up with a second sun and a shock wave shattered windows in hundreds of buildings around Chelyabinsk, only a few people picking themselves off the ground figured it out right away. This was not a crashing plane or a rocket attack.

"It was a meteor strike--the most powerful since the Tunguska event of 1908," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.

More - Link >>> http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/26feb_russianmeteor/

Source: NASA Science News.

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Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2013/02/rocket-to-smack-asteroid-planned-by.html

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Feb. 15: Close Earth Flyby of Large Asteroid (2013 Feb. 4):

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