The author of several books about the Tunguska meteorite, Andrei Olkhovatov, is sure that the events of February 15 are another reason for humanity to think.
Commentary by Andrey Olkhovatov - candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, researcher of the Tunguska catastrophe, author of several books about the Tunguska meteorite, co-author of the book "Tunguska radiance".
This morning, an event took place over the south of the Urals, which will be included in astronomy textbooks. And most likely, and not only astronomy. For the first time in history known to us, the collision of a cosmic body with our planet led to more or less noticeable material damage, a noticeable number of victims (let's hope only lightly injured).
In this video, you can clearly see how the glass falls from the blast wave.
In 1954, an American woman sustained injuries to her arms and thigh when a small meteorite smashed through the roof of her house and hit her. In the Chelyabinsk case (let's call it that), judging by preliminary and incomplete reports, a lot of people got cuts from broken glass. Hopefully, this is the end of it.
A few words about the nature of the phenomenon. Judging by the videos posted, we are dealing with the entry into the atmosphere and the subsequent destruction of a cosmic (meteoric) body in it. It is difficult to judge about its size from the initial reports, one can tentatively assume a size of several meters. The chances of finding its fragments are very high, then it will be possible to talk about the Chelyabinsk meteorite (although if the fragments are found in another settlement, the name may change).
It seems that the Chelyabinsk event has become the most documented fireball event in Russia. Therefore, I would venture to express confidence that a comparison of a large number of recordings from surveillance cameras will make it possible to very accurately determine the trajectory of a cosmic body and some other parameters. Then it will be possible to try to understand whether it is associated with the asteroid 2012 DA14 or not.
Promotional video:
Another interesting fact is curious:
"Space monitoring devices have recorded flares in the lower layers of the atmosphere," said Elena Smirnykh, deputy head of the information department of the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
What kind of "devices" is not specified. In the United States, the military from time to time release data from its tracking satellites for missile launches and nuclear explosions, in those cases when they detect bright fireballs. Maybe the Russian military will follow suit.
By the way, the Chelyabinsk bolide generated a powerful acoustic disturbance in the atmosphere, which can be detected by barographs at distances of hundreds or more kilometers. It would be good not to forget about this data, as well as about the data of seismic stations.
However, already one result of the Chelyabinsk car is known. Humanity is defenseless against such phenomena, although they are very rare. Nevertheless, maybe this is another reason to think about whether it is better for humanity to work together to prevent such phenomena, instead of preparing weapons to destroy each other?