At least 250 people injured after meteor storm

The moon is our shield, and even it is rarely hit by anything of note anymore.

 

Not much of a shield. Even working two-dimensionally (since most meteoroids are pretty much in the plane of the ecliptic), the chances of an object that would otherwise hit the earth intercepting the moon instead are on the order of about 1 in 700. When you take into account the three-dimensional possibilities, of an object coming in above or below the moon, even if it is lined up with it in two dimensions, you are talking about a "shield" that might catch 1 dangerous object out of 1000.

I wouldn't count on the moon to protect us.

 

I think flow was talking more about the gravity well created by the moon?

But I'm not a scientist, so WTF do I know...

 

The gravity well would have little effect. Very little. The earth's gravity is about 80 times that of the moon. (The reason the moon's surface gravity is 1/6th that of earth's is that on the moon, due to the small size, you are much closer to the center of mass.)

 

The moon provides a little bit of protection, but not much, and its gravity could just as easily direct an object into the Earth that would have otherwise missed. Given our relative sizes it would be more accurate to say that the Earth protects the moon from impacts.

 

Jupiter is a cheeky bitch.

 

[yt="It looks like it's time to get on the roof with my guns"]zoEGopVhX9A[/yt]

 

Given the Earth has been hit countless times before, & will be countless times again, you'd think this event & the one passing nearby would be a wake-up call to TPTB.

Doesn't the Earth get "hit" all the time? Or alot? I mean it gets "hit", but the meteors & meteorites are SO SMALL it's for all practical purposes NOT getting hit, but technically you ARE being hit.

 

Supposedly a rock this size hits us about once per decade. But given that most of the earth's surface is covered by oceans, most of them go unnoticed.

 

IIRC, it was a 10 kiloton sized detonation that happened over the North Pacific in late 1990.

I remember reading in one of Dr. Robert Zubrins books (Entering Space) that if it had come 10 hours earlier it would've exploded over southern Iraq with the build up to the Gulf War/Desert Storm in progress.

 

Mostly minor injuries from broken glass.

Looks like the Russians dodged a bullet on this one because it was small. If it had been as big as the one coming by Earth later today that whole city would have been squashed flat.

 

CNN has a live telescope feed following the one that's zipping past now:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/cvplive/cvpstream4&hpt=hp_c2#/video/cvplive/cvpstream4

 

Looks look one Russian news channel dropped the ball and showed a burning crater......

[wyt=The crater]pLsaOxhuZig[/wyt]

 

I was wondering where the hell that crater came from.

 

The thing took out a motherfucking Zinc factory!

More pics here including the craters:
http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/

 

Well, Dan scooped my thread and 'flow scooped the angle I was going to use for it.

 

Then ya might as well just start whistlin'!

 

What are the chances TPTB would even TELL the public that an end of Cretaceous type asteroid was on an imminent collision course with the Earth, NOT the Moon? Would they not tell out of fear of global social mayhem?

 

Wonder what the price per gram will be for authenticated material.

 

I would hope they would just for the sheer entertainment factor of watching the world go to hell shortly before our destruction.

 

Homer: "Oh Lisa! There's no record of a hurricane ever hitting Springfield."
Lisa: "Yes, but the records only go back to 1978 when the Hall of Records was mysteriously blown away!"

 

Weather updates?

 

Meteor? Pffft. I know a Predator landing when I see one...

 

Yeeeehaaaaaaaw!!!!!