People injured from meteorite that hit Russia with force of atomic bomb

People injured from meteorite that hit Russia with force of atomic bomb







A meteor streaked across the sky
and exploded over Russia’s Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic
bomb Friday, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring
about 1,100 people. The spectacle deeply frightened many Russians, with
some elderly women declaring that the world was coming to an end. Many
of the injured were cut by flying glass as they flocked to windows,
curious about what had produced such a blinding flash of light.

The meteor — estimated to be about
10 tons and 49 feet wide — entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a
hypersonic speed of at least 33,000 mph and shattered into pieces about
18-32 miles above the ground, the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a
statement. Amateur video showed an object speeding across the sky about
9:20 a.m. local time, just after sunrise, leaving a thick white contrail
and an intense flash. ”There was panic. People had no idea what was
happening,” said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, a city of 1
million about 930 miles east of Moscow.

“We saw a big burst of light, then
went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud, thundering
sound,” he told The Associated Press by telephone. The meteor hit less
than a day before Asteroid 2012 DA14 is to make the closest recorded pass of an asteroid to the Earth –
about 17,150 miles. But the European Space Agency said its experts had
determined there was no connection — just cosmic coincidence. Read more: .foxnew


Thanks to: http://aworldchaos.wordpress.com