Meteorite falling in the Ural Mountains in Russia
The inhabitants of this side of the planet (America), woke up today with this news, like a science fiction movie: “A meteorite falls in the Ural Mountains in Russia”, it happened at about 9.20 in the morning.
In addition to all the tragic aspects of this event, so many people injured and buildings destroyed, we must know that we are living history! In a few years, decades, centuries, we will be talking about what we are seeing live today; just as 65 million years ago, a meteorite killed the dinosaurs, and even today we are still talking about it.
Wikipedia tells us “A meteorite is a meteoroid that reaches the surface of a planet because it does not disintegrate completely in the atmosphere. The luminosity left behind when it disintegrates is called a meteor.”, listening to an interview with a physicist, he explained the difference between the terms asteroid, meteor and meteorite, he said: “An asteroid is a fairly large object, they have a fixed orbit and many passes, like a peripheral path”. He added that meteors can come from the surface of Mars or Mercury.
And the impact was not only on earth, it has also been a shocking phenomenon on the web.
This is the topic of the moment, has filled pages in online newspapers and ink, social networks only talk about it and not for less, there are many videos on youtube that have uploaded the different protagonists first hand, in short, that in this technological age, there has been no corner of the planet that has been left without observing something so shocking.
There are few times that an astronomical phenomenon impacts a city and others have fallen into the sea and in unpopulated areas, but this one has had more significance because of the consequences it has caused in an urbanized area.
What material fell?
It is still under investigation, there is no scientific data, but by its nature it is a meteorite formed by what geologists call a conglomerate, rocks, bits of metal; the mother object could have weighed about ten tons that upon entering the earth’s atmosphere breaks into pieces and it is the shock wave that causes so much damage.
That entry into the earth’s atmosphere, which occurs at fifty-four thousand kilometers per hour, is what makes it not only disintegrate into pieces, but also take that luminosity, because in reality it is an opaque body, which by its size is not visible to large telescopes, which are also busy looking for large phenomena, that means to them as “a dust particle”, However, it is visible to amateur astronomers who are on the lookout for anything strange that is observed in the sky, however, for these days, everyone has been watching the asteroid 2012DA14 that would pass near the earth this Friday, February 15, NASA reports that this asteroid has nothing to do with the meteorite.
Why does it look so bright?
As we have already said it is an opaque body, because of the trip when it enters the terrestrial atmosphere it disintegrates into pieces when it enters the dense layers of the atmosphere, it heats up and glows, leaving a gas-like trail or yet when there are changes in temperature the gases condense.
The unfortunate thing is that this event has devastated a city, there are already eleven hundred people injured, three hundred buildings with damages and as the hours go by, this count may increase.
The rest of the planet can only pray that in the future, the telescopes that keep reporting the activity in the sky, take more into account these small bodies that although without light and almost invisible “to their eyes”, with time scientists can warn, so if it is the case evacuate a city.