News Report : Attack from Space! Meteor Shower is 1st strike!

[Cikomyr]

It's the first I ever heard of such events (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21470205)

A meteor shower has struck Russia a few hours ago, injuring at least 400 in the process (another reports I've seen mentioned 500).


Has this ever happened, from recorded history?

[Elemental]

A meteor falling from the sky near a populated area? It happens.

[Cikomyr]

A meteor falling from the sky near a populated area? It happens.

That big of a meteor?

[factotum]

Has this ever happened, from recorded history?

Yes--see the Tunguska event for the most obvious example, but meteors striking the ground are definitely not unknown. In fact, there have even been people directly struck by the things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Hodges

[Cikomyr]

Yes--see the Tunguska event for the most obvious example, but meteors striking the ground are definitely not unknown. In fact, there have even been people directly struck by the things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Hodges

I see... so this isn't a sudden attack...

WE ARE UNDER SIEGE!!! :smalleek:

[Elemental]

I see... so this isn't a sudden attack...

WE ARE UNDER SIEGE!!! :smalleek:

We have been for billions of years. You only need to look at the Moon to see the devastation wreaked on our planet in the past.

[factotum]

We have been for billions of years. You only need to look at the Moon to see the devastation wreaked on our planet in the past.

To be fair, almost all of the devastation we see on the Moon's surface was sustained during a period of massive bombardment in the early solar system--it's been relatively quiet for four billion years or so since then.

[Elemental]

To be fair, almost all of the devastation we see on the Moon's surface was sustained during a period of massive bombardment in the early solar system--it's been relatively quiet for four billion years or so since then.

I know. The solar system wasted most of its ammunition early on.

[pendell]

Nah, what really happens is that every few decades some idjit with more power than sense levels up and takes Meteor Swarm in his 9th-level slot because he thinks it's cool. And it is, once.

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[Yora]

I know. The solar system wasted most of its ammunition early on.

Because that's how rocky planets and planetoids are made. Giant balls of asteroids smashed together. I think there are some object classified as asteroids that are almost sphere shaped because they grew so big that their own gravity forced them into that form.

[Cikomyr]

Because that's how rocky planets and planetoids are made. Giant balls of asteroids smashed together. I think there are some object classified as asteroids that are almost sphere shaped because they grew so big that their own gravity forced them into that form.

Ah! So you are a proponent of "creative destruction" economic theory?

"Only by shooting a lot has the Solar System been able to create itself"

[Elemental]

Because that's how rocky planets and planetoids are made. Giant balls of asteroids smashed together. I think there are some object classified as asteroids that are almost sphere shaped because they grew so big that their own gravity forced them into that form.

That too, but this was after that when the planets had already been mostly decided on.

[Johel]

I see... so this isn't a sudden attack...

WE ARE UNDER SIEGE!!! :smalleek:

So... Everyone is going to do their part ? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faFuaYA-daw)

"Meteors are falling. Those are not meteors, it is Americans testing their new weapon."

That's at least the stand of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the russian "Liberal Democratic Party", a ultranationalist political faction.
The notion is interesting :
If another country WAS firing ICBM at Russia but in small enough number as to NOT be mistaken as a general offensive, what would Russia do ?
They also have their own anti-missile system but it is unproven so far, with no test witnessed by independant observers.

So here is the scenario :
A (non-identified) nation with ICBM fires at Russia (or at any nuclear power, really).
The local anti-ballistic systems fail to intercept.
But the warhead happens to have been empty.

What would the government do ?
Going public and say "it was a test of our defences by a foreign nation and we failed miserably" ?
Going public and say "it was meteorites !! Go back to your fun !!" ?
Both actions have their pros and cons.
But what would be the most desirable ?

[Grinner]

A large meteor was supposed to come within spitting distance of Earth today, and I was surprised by how nonchalant everyone was about it locally. It was on the national-freaking-news. :smallconfused:

Anyway, I suppose a few fragments hit Earth.

[Cikomyr]

So... Everyone is going to do their part ? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faFuaYA-daw)


Holy Crap....

:smalleek:


NEIL PATRICK HARRIS WAS IN THIS FLICK?!

and I only noticed NOW?!?! :smalleek::smalleek::smalleek::smalleek:

[Yora]

That's at least the stand of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the russian "Liberal Democratic Party", a ultranationalist political faction.
Wasn't that the guy who everyone called a crackpot in the last presidential elections?

[Karoht]

Actually, the fragment that hit came from a different direction than the one which is passing by later passed us by.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/02/15/russia-meteorite.html
"Russian news reports noted that the meteor hit less than a day before the asteroid 2012 DA14 is to make the closest recorded pass of an asteroid — about 28,000 kilometres. CBC reporter Bob McDonald said the asteroid is coming from a different direction than the Russia meteor."
The one that hit today was 9-10 tonnes and about 10 meters across.
The one passing by which passed by is 45 meters across and obviously higher mass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_2012_DA14
"There is a cumulative 0.00000021% risk (1 in 4,700,000) of 2012 DA14 impacting Earth during future passes between 2080 and 2111."

[MikelaC1]

"There is a cumulative 0.00000021% risk (1 in 4,700,000) of 2012 DA14 impacting Earth during future passes between 2080 and 2111."

Our plan is working perfectly, they think they're safe.....

[Hiro Protagonest]

Holy Crap....

:smalleek:


NEIL PATRICK HARRIS WAS IN THIS FLICK?!

and I only noticed NOW?!?! :smalleek::smalleek::smalleek::smalleek:

He played John Rico's friend Carl, who joined the military in the intelligence branch due to having psychic ability, then pretty much disappeared until reappearing as a colonel after the alien ambush where the lieutenant died.

[Johel]

Wasn't that the guy who everyone called a crackpot in the last presidential elections?

I'm just quoting the man, not judging his sanity.
But whether its author is crazy or not, I found the idea amusing. :smallsmile:

@Mikela :

Eeeexcellent... let's move on to phase II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei_GZnrr1nw).

[Cikomyr]

He played John Rico's friend Carl, who joined the military in the intelligence branch due to having psychic ability, then pretty much disappeared until reappearing as a colonel after the alien ambush where the lieutenant died.

I know the movie very well. It's one of my favourite. I just never payed any attention to the actors in it...

And now this blew to my face. BARNEY IS A PSYCHIC?!

[Yora]

Ah! So you are a proponent of "creative destruction" economic theory?

"Only by shooting a lot has the Solar System been able to create itself"
It's even more than that. I think it is believed that most "recent" solar systems start as gas clouds that are kickstarted into contracting into a tighter ball by the shockwaves or nearby supernovas.

Also, a hydrogen cloud contracting into a star can only transform Hydrogen into Helium; Helium into Lithium, into Carbon, into Nitrogen, into Oxygen, into Neon, into Silicium, into Iron. Transforming Iron into heavier elements does not produce heat but would suck it out of the star, so it can never create enough pressure and heat to create the 64 remaining natural element. The only thing that can create the neccessary pressure to make atoms fuse into heavier elements is the shockwave of a supernova. Copper, silver, gold, platinum, lead, uranium, and many other more elements can only exist because of giant explosions! :smallamused:

[The Bushranger]

Here's what the Bad Astronomer had to say about it. (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/15/russian_meteorite_fragment_may_have_fallen_in_froz en_lake.html)

[bbgenderless100]

Ah fantastic more fearmongoring. :smallsigh:


Just another way to try and get inside my head, as if there isn't enough shoved down my throat as "reality" *cough* Marriage *cough* now its flying rocks from the sky.

:smallannoyed:

[Mikhailangelo]

It matters not if the asteroid hits in 2111. In AD 2101, war was beginning.

[Killer Angel]

In fact, there have even been people directly struck by the things:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Hodges

Did she became Ginormica? :smalltongue:

[Yora]

Interesting, the blast from the explosion is estimated at about 400 kilotonnes of TNT, or about 20 to 30 small nuks. That was indeed a big one.

And one NASA guy is quoted as calling it the largest documented meteor stike since 1908. And that one was a lot bigger, with an explosion 10 to 60 times as big.

[Flickerdart]

Interesting, the blast from the explosion is estimated at about 400 kilotonnes of TNT, or about 20 to 30 small nuks. That was indeed a big one.

And one NASA guy is quoted as calling it the largest documented meteor stike since 1908. And that one was a lot bigger, with an explosion 10 to 60 times as big.
That one? Also Russia.

Where was the one before that? Because this is starting to get suspicious. :smallwink:

[thubby]

wimp did it first.

[Don Julio Anejo]

That one? Also Russia.

Where was the one before that? Because this is starting to get suspicious. :smallwink:
KGB is too cheap to build a proper alien launchpad like the one at Area 51, so the poor aliens have to improvise, but it looks like they haven't ironed out all the kinks involved in landing on Russian roads.


So here is the scenario :
A (non-identified) nation with ICBM fires at Russia (or at any nuclear power, really).
The local anti-ballistic systems fail to intercept.
But the warhead happens to have been empty.

What would the government do ?
Going public and say "it was a test of our defences by a foreign nation and we failed miserably" ?
Going public and say "it was meteorites !! Go back to your fun !!" ?
Both actions have their pros and cons.
But what would be the most desirable ?
They actually had a nuclear scare back during the cold war. Russian early warning satellites bugged out and gave off readings as if Americans were launching a first strike (but with only a small amount of nukes). The guy in charge of satellites pretty much called it out as a malfunction and refused to pass the information to his superiors (who would likely have activated whatever nuclear response plans were).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

[Bulldog Psion]

I'm a few hundred miles south of Chelyabinsk at the moment, and was here when the meteor struck. Relatives of my in-laws called up to see if we were still alive afterward. :smallwink: We didn't hear or see anything, though, other than the news reports of course.

As for attack from space -- it's pretty much going on continuously, always has been, and always will be. Just that it's fairly uncommon (on a human time scale) for a meteor to make the news.

[Yora]

They actually had a nuclear scare back during the cold war. Russian early warning satellites bugged out and gave off readings as if Americans were launching a first strike (but with only a small amount of nukes). The guy in charge of satellites pretty much called it out as a malfunction and refused to pass the information to his superiors (who would likely have activated whatever nuclear response plans were).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident
Also, I think we were never told how reliably silo crews would push the buttons to launch during unannounced exercise drills. (Though maybe these test-runs didn't actually exist and were made up by movies.)

[Kindablue]

The most surprising thing about this whole development for me was my slow realization of how many god damn dashboard cameras there are in Russia. I haven't even paid that much attention to the news, and I must have seen hundreds of angles of it coming down already. Do people watch them later for fun? Is it an insurance thing?


That one? Also Russia.

Where was the one before that? Because this is starting to get suspicious. :smallwink:

If they both landed in Ivory Coast or Nepal you might be on to something, but it's pretty hard to hit dry land somewhere on this planet and also miss Russia.

[Flickerdart]

they haven't ironed out all the kinks involved in landing on Russian roads.

Russian whats?

[Alejandro]

The most surprising thing about this whole development for me was my slow realization of how many god damn dashboard cameras there are in Russia. I haven't even paid that much attention to the news, and I must have seen hundreds of angles of it coming down already. Do people watch them later for fun? Is it an insurance thing?



If they both landed in Ivory Coast or Nepal you might be on to something, but it's pretty hard to hit dry land somewhere on this planet and also miss Russia.

There are a lot of incidents in Russia of people staging or forcing car accidents, or otherwise shady handling of auto insurance, to the point where you are unlikely to get a claim unless you have ironclad proof. So, lots of Russians use personal dash cams.

[TheThan]

if anything the footage is amazing.

[Hiro Protagonest]

KGB is too cheap to build a proper alien launchpad like the one at Area 51, so the poor aliens have to improvise, but it looks like they haven't ironed out all the kinks involved in landing on Russian roads.
Please, there are no aliens, Area 51 just sometimes tests designs modeled after the classic disc UFOs.

Russian whats?

He's talking about those stretches of land between five and twenty feet wide (depending on quality) where most of the snow is shoveled out and built up on either side.

[Morph Bark]

To be fair, almost all of the devastation we see on the Moon's surface was sustained during a period of massive bombardment in the early solar system--it's been relatively quiet for four billion years or so since then.

The moon was also the biggest meteor that ever struck the Earth. Let's hope that never happens again!

[hamishspence]

Strictly the moon's made of splashed Earth mantle material from the impact, rather than the impactor itself.

There's no near-Earth objects anywhere near that size left. Even the biggest comets known don't approach that size. However, a giant comet, like Hale-Bopp, could outdo the impactor that killed the dinosaurs- be both larger and faster.

[Yora]

If two planets were sharing roughly the same orbit, wouldn't that indicate that they would also be of the same composition? An early planetary disk should be roughly radially symetric, or isn't it?

In which case separating what material of the Earth and the Moon belong to which body before the impact would be very difficult.

---

In other news, they just discovered possibly the first dwarf planet in another star system. It's roughly half the volume of Mercury, but determining if it has scooped up all the asteroids in it's orbit might be impossible to tell from that distance. If it actually did clear the orbit, then it would be the smallest known planet in the universe. :smallbiggrin:

[hamishspence]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis

Energetic aftermath

In 2001, a team at the Carnegie Institute of Washington reported the most precise measurement of the isotopic signatures of lunar rocks.[2] To their surprise, the team found that the rocks from the Apollo program carried an isotopic signature that was identical with rocks from Earth, and were different from almost all other bodies in the Solar System. Since most of the material that went into orbit to form the Moon was thought to come from Theia, this observation was unexpected. In 2007, researchers from the California Institute of Technology showed that the likelihood of Theia having an identical isotopic signature as the Earth was very small (<1 percent).[15] Instead, they proposed that in the aftermath of the giant impact, while the Earth and the proto-lunar disk were molten and vaporized, the two reservoirs were connected by a common silicate vapour atmosphere, and that the Earth–Moon system became homogenized by convective stirring while the system existed in the form of a continuous fluid. Such an "equilibration" between the post-impact Earth and the proto-lunar disk is the only scenario capable of explaining the isotopic similarities of the Apollo rocks with rocks from the Earth's interior. For this scenario to be viable, however, the proto-lunar disk must exist for a time period of ~100 years. Work is ongoing to determine whether or not this is possible.
[edit]

[Yora]

Apparently, they now spoted a forming planet in some star system. There is really a lot of dicovering going on these days.

I just learned that Dark Energy was proposed only in 1998. That's when Babylon 5 had finished it's run and Star Trek Voyager already half over and about the time Half-Life was released. Never realized I was already old enough to learn about it when it first appeared on the scene,

[hamishspence]

New report- the Chicxulub impactor that's sometimes thought to have killed the dinosaurs, may have been a comet after all:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21709229