Russian Meteor Strikes Ural Mountains, Causes Sonic Boom, Damage, 400 Injured

On Friday at 9:20 AM in Russia, a meteor flew over the Ural Mountain Range and as it did, the sonic boom caused damage to a large number of buildings, including a plant and a school, and in turn caused injuries to 400 people.

The event seems to have taken the science community by surprise, as there’s no report of a warning about this meteor, and calls into question how much we really know, and where the next one will strike next.

While American media reports that there’s confusion in Russia regarding if there was a single meteor or a shower of them, the videos this vlogger reviewed for the production of the news vlog seem to point to just one object of perhaps 40 feet in size, or larger.

While the talk was that an asteroid called 2012 DS14 was to pass within 17,000 miles of Earth, this was not that object.

The Russian Meteor’s sonic boom alone was enough to shatter thick panes of glass in giant office buildings in the city of Chelyabinsk in Central Russia. The Indian publication The Economic Times reported…

“I was driving in the car across the square. Suddenly the square lit up with a bright, bright light, not a normal light,” said Vasily Rozhko.”There was literally three or four seconds of bright light, then back to normal. As I could see from the car, this trail appeared. Then when I was driving, the explosion went off,” the resident of Chelyabinsk in central Russia told Russian television.

The Russian Meteor’s sonic boom also caused a chain reaction that leveled a zinc plant, and blew open a large door in a warehouse-type facility.

Bill Nye Was Wrong And Right

On CNN last week, Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society, and the man known as “Bill Nye The Science Guy” said that the asteroid called 2012 DA14 would pass within about 17,000 miles of Earth on Friday, February 15th, but not strike our planet at any place. If such an event happened, where 2012 DS14 has hit a large city like Atlanta, Nye said “that would be it” for that urban establishment. The force of such a happening has been compared to that of a nuclear bomb.

That’s all well and good, but it fails to explain what it was that hit Russia near the town of Chelyabinsk.

Stay tuned for more.