ARE THESE REALLY THE WAKE UP CALLS ?

The series of events taking place around the world are giving more than the required respite for the doomdayers. Some of them even got charged up and declaring it a Wake up call for the world.

BEYOND 2012

A meteor is seen in the sky over the city of Chelyabinsk

> A meteorite streaked across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, raining fireballs over a vast area and causing a shock wave that smashed windows, damaged buildings and injured 1,200 people

February 15 2013

Some 1,200 people were injured after the meteor blazed across the western Siberian sky with a blinding flash and booming shockwave.

> Asteroid may be shaken by seismic quakes, as it zips by Earth

Asteroid 2012 DA14 brushes by Earth

February 15 2013

SPACE – An asteroid which is to hurtle close to the Earth tomorrow may experience a seismic jolt as it passes through our planet’s gravitational field, scientists suggest. The 45m asteroid, named 2012 DA14, will fly by at 7.8 km/s at a distance of just 27,000 km from Earth.

> Deep 6.2 magnitude earthquake rattles the Philippines

6.2-magnitude earthquake

February 16 2013

PHILIPPINES – A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck Saturday near the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, the state-run Philippines News Agency (PNA) reported. The temblor hit at 12:37 p.m. local time, 149 kilometers (93 miles) south of Davao, the USGS said. It struck at a depth of about 98 kilometers. The epicenter of the earthquake was 28 km (17 miles) SE of Caburan, Philippines. No tsunami warning or watch has been issued. Today’s earthquake marks the 20^th major earthquake to strike the planet in the month of February. A 5.7magnitude earthquake also struck the ocean floor, off the North Island of New Zealand

> Meteorite fireballs streak across skies over Cuba and San Francisco

light streaking in the San Francisco Bay sky was a sporadic meteor

February 16 2013

HAVANA — An object fell from the sky over central Cuba on Thursday night and turned into a fireball “bigger than the sun” before it exploded, a Cuban TV channel reported Friday, citing eyewitnesses. Some residents in the central province of Cienfuegos were quoted as saying that at around 8 p.m. local time Thursday (0100 GMT Friday) they saw a bright spot in the sky comparable to a bus in size. The object then turned into a fireball “bigger than the sun,” said the witnesses, adding that several minutes later they heard a loud explosion. One resident told the TV station that his house shook slightly in the blast. Cuban experts have been dispatched to the area to look for possible remains of the meteor-like object, said the report. It remains unknown whether the reported phenomenon in Cuba is related to Friday’s meteor strike in central Russia, which set off a shockwave that shattered windows and left some 1,000 people injured.

> Mysterious shaking puzzles experts in Morristown, TN- damages homes

Agency recorded at least 35 reports of the event

February 16 2013

MORRISTOWN, TN – Late Tuesday afternoon dozens of concerned neighbors called Hamblen County 911 to report the earth shaking and the sound of a large blast.

> 4.9 magnitude earthquake creates panic in Central Italy

4.9 magnitude tremor in Italy

February 16, 2013 –

ITALY – A 4.9 magnitude spooking quake hit central Italy late Saturday, shaking apartment buildings in the center of Rome, and citizens in the region of Abruzzo, struck by a killer quake in 2009. The earthquake hit Frosinone, between the capital and the southern city of Naples, at a depth of 10.7 kilometers according to Italy’s Geophysics Institute. No injuries or damage to buildings were reported. The tremor sparked panicked calls in the Abruzzo region to the emergency services. The medieval town of L’Aquila was hit in 2009 by a 6.3-magnitude quake which killed 309 people, in Abruzzo raced out of their houses in panic, according to Italian media reports.

METEORITE HITS EARTH IN RUSSIA

Chelyabinsk is an industrial city 1,500 km (950 miles) east of Moscow.

On Friday morning (Feb.15), residents of Russia’s Chelyabinsk region were shocked by a giant fireball streaking across the sky. The explosion, caused by a small meteoroid entering the atmosphere, reportedly injured hundreds as it blew out windows and sent glass flying.

People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt the shock wave, Chelyabinsk is an industrial city 1,500 km (950 miles) east of Moscow.

The meteor lit up the sky

As Chelyabinsk is Russia’s industrial heartland it homes to many factories and other huge facilities that include a nuclear power plant and the Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre.

“I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it were day,” said Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains.

“I felt like I was blinded by headlights.”

A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia

The fireball, travelling at a speed of 30 km (19 miles) per second according to Russian space agency Roscosmos, had blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail that could be seen as far as 200 km (125 miles) away.

The Russian Academy of Sciences said it entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 33,000mph (54,000kph) – 15 times the speed of a rifle bullet – and shattered into pieces around 18-32 miles (30-50km) high in the sky.

The energy released when it entered the Earth’s atmosphere was equivalent to a few kilotonnes, the academy said, the power of a small atomic weapon exploding.It reportedly exploded with the force of 20 atomic bombs.

Nasa estimated its speed was even faster at 40,000mph, and said it exploded at about 12-15 miles high and left a trail 300 miles long.

The meteor weighed an estimated 7,000 tons and was about the size of a bus.

WINDOWS BLOWN OUT

The early-morning blast and ensuing shock wave blew out windows on Chelyabinsk’s central Lenin Street, buckled some shop fronts, rattled apartment buildings in the city center and blew out windows.

Broken windows and debris are seen inside a sports hall

“I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend,” said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name. “Then there was a flash and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shock wave that smashed windows.”

A worker removes pieces of broken window glass in Chelyabinsk

Many were hurt by flying glass as windows were blown in. Witnesses described feeling a pressure wave and hearing explosions overhead as the object hurtled to Earth.A wall and roof were badly damaged at the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant but a spokeswoman said no environmental threat resulted.

The regional governor in Chelyabinsk said the meteorite shower had caused more than $30 million in damage, and the Emergencies Ministry said 300 buildings had been affected.

RARE EVENT

The fall of such a large meteor estimated as weighing dozens of tonnes and the size of a double-decker bus, was extremely rare, while the number of casualties as a consequence of its burning up around a heavily-inhabited area was unprecedented.

Russian police work near an ice hole said to be the point of impact of a meteor seen earlier in the Urals region, at lake Chebarkul, some 50 miles west of Chelyabinsk.

One piece of meteorite broke through the ice the Cherbakul Lake near Chelyabinsk, leaving a hole several meters (yards) wide.

The office of the local governor said that a meteorite had fallen into a lake outside the town of Chebarkul in the Chelyabinsk region and television images pointed to a six-metre (20-foot) hole in the frozen lake’s ice.

“While events this big are rare, an impact that could cause damage and death could happen every century or so. Unfortunately there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop impacts.”

to think of anything in recorded history when that number of people have been indirectly injured by an object like this… it’s very, very rare to have human casualties,” Robert Massey, deputy executive secretary of Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), said.

BUSINESS

“Selling meteorite that fell on Chelyabinsk!”

If pieces of the fireball are found, scientists will be curious to see how much diversity they exhibit. Most meteorites are too small to be more than a single kind of rock, but a 7,000-tonne object that is 15 metres across is like a world unto itself.

Despite warnings not to approach any unidentified objects, some enterprising locals were hoping to cash in.

One prospective seller, Vladimir, said on a popular Russian auction website. He attached a picture of a black piece of stone that on Friday afternoon was priced at 1,488 Roubles ($49.46).

*($1 = 30.0877 Russian Roubles)

RELIEF

The Emergencies Ministry described Friday’s events as a “meteorite shower in the form of fireballs” and said background radiation levels were normal. It urged residents not to panic.

A building damaged by the shockwaves from the meteorite which fell in Russia’s Ural mountains on Friday

No deaths were reported but the Emergencies Ministry said 20,000 rescue and clean-up workers were sent to the region after President Vladimir Putin told Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov to ease the disruption and help the victims.

The Interior Ministry said about 1,200 people had been injured, at least 200 of them children, and most from shards of glass.

WELL DOCUMENTED EVENT

Whatever the scientific return, Friday’s fireball was so spectacular and so well documented that it will invariably become a kind of Hurricane Sandy for asteroid surveillance – exhibit A in the argument for investing more resources in spotting objects of similar size so that people can be warned if an impact is imminent.

The first footage was shot by car dashboard video cameras and soon went viral.

Dozens of videos of the meteor trail and its aftermath quickly appeared online, and analyses of these eyewitness accounts as well as measurements from scientific instruments are giving scientists one of the best looks ever at an atmospheric meteor burst.

Many drivers in Russia have video recorders fitted in their cars in case of accidents or disputes with traffic police. Footage from these uploaded to YouTube show the fireball crashing to the ground.

Video footage:

Simon Goodwin, an astrophysics expert from Britain’s University of Sheffield, said that roughly 1,000 to 10,000 metric tons of material rained down from space towards the earth every day, but most burned up in the atmosphere.

Experts drew comparisons with an incident in 1908, when a meteorite is thought to have devastated an area of more than 2,000 sq km (1,250 miles) in Siberia, breaking windows as far as 200 km (125 miles) from the point of impact.

CO-INCIDENCE

The meteor hit hours before the asteroid 2012 DA14 made the closest recorded pass of an asteroid to the Earth, although scientists said the two events were not linked.

A 50-metre asteroid has skimmed past the earth

A 50-metre asteroid has skimmed past the earth at a distance of 17,000 miles, closer than any other object of its size in history. The 2012 DA14 rock hurtled past inside the orbit of some satellites on the same day shards of meteorite came to earth in Russia. Nasa scientists said the timing of the two cosmic events was merely coincidental.

THE METEORITE

Animated illustration of the same Meteoroid, Meteor, and Meteorite

Meteors typically cause sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are travelling much faster than the speed of sound.
“Since it’s traveling at such a high rate of speed — 40,000 miles per hour — when it comes into contact or interacts with the Earth’s atmosphere, the Earth’s atmosphere is essentially demanding that it slow down.”
When the asteroid hits the brakes, its energy is released.
“That causes the air around it to glow, make it look like it’s burning.”
All lead up to a massive explosion so powerful that it can shatter windows up to 50 miles away.
“It has to give up the energy of momentum if it is traveling at 40,000 MPH somehow.”
And that meteor is nearly impossible for astronomers to spot or predict.

THE METEORITE THAT HIT RUSSIA

The entry: A 7,000 tonne meteor entered the atmosphere above Chelyabinsk, Russia, at 9:20 a.m. local time at a speed at least 40,000 kilometers an hour, disintegrating at a height of 30 to 50 kilometers Researchers at NASA say it hailed from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The strike: The meteor unleashed a force 20 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, although the space rock exploded at a much higher altitude. The fireball it produced was dramatic, causing a sizable sonic boom.

The fallout: An estimated 1,000 people including 200 children were injured. Many were hurt rushing to windows to glimpse the fireball, only to have the windows shatter seconds later. Shock waves from the debris are believed to have knocked in part of the roof and walls of a local zinc plant and damaged 3,000 other buildings.

What was it made of?

“It is likely to be based on rock like what you would find on Earth.”

But may have contained some metals, such as iron.

How big was it?

The meteor was measured to weigh 10 tons and would probably have measured around five meters in diameter.

What would have happened if it had hit Earth?

Objects of that size rarely penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere but it could have got through in one piece had it contained more metal.

If it landed in its original form, this would leave a crater three times its size and a “quite substantial” blast which would emanate a large amount of heat transferred from the kinetic energy of the meteor.

“You would probably see considerable fatalities if it hit a populated area.”

:: What can be done if we know a meteor or asteroid is going to hit Earth?

Scientists are constantly monitoring space for asteroids and meteors, and there are options to deal with them, including nuclear weapons.

But if the object is between 0.6 and 1.2 miles in size, it would cause a global catastrophe.”There are surveys going on to look for the larger stuff. It depends how soon you could pick them up.

“If you detect them early then we can contemplate deflecting an asteroid. As a very, very last resort you can always call upon nuclear weapons.

“And if everything goes wrong you do have the option to evacuate people.

“But if you get something between 0.6-1.2 miles in size then you are talking global catastrophe so evacuation probably wouldn’t do any good.”

DATA

About 200,000 square meters of window glass in Chelyabinsk were shattered by the meteorite explosion, Russia’s Emergency Ministry reports. The latest data reveals that 3,724 apartments, 671 educational institutions, 69 cultural facilities, 34 hospitals and clinics, 11 social facilities and 5 sport venues in the Chelyabinsk region were damaged by the impact wave following the explosion.

The broken windows at all medical institutions and about a third of the other buildings have already been repaired. By Monday, all schools and kindergartens are expected to resume normal operations.

Global

Infrasound stations tracking nuclear tests worldwide recorded the meteorite explosion above the Chelyabinsk region. Eleven stations of the 45 belonging to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization determined that the incident in Russia took place at 03:22 GMT on Friday. The stations are located in 35 countries around the world.