HUGE METEOR Breaks Apart Over Russia

This morning in Russia, THIS happened:

OH MY GOD. THAT IS SO AWESOME AND ALSO MILDLY TERRIFYING. Oh, and accompanying this huge meteor was an equally huge shockwave that, for many people, didn't reach them for several moments after the meteor passed. Watch this video and listen carefully at the 27 second mark...

Yeah. It was loud. REALLY REALLY LOUD.

And it shattered glass all over the place. There are reports of injuries from the shattered glass, but right now this is all so new it's hard to know what is real and what isn't. What is known is that THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME for everyone that isn't injured or has property damage.

For the most updated and scientifically sound information (and less EXCITED CAPSLOCK), go read Phil Plait's analysis of the Russian Meteor. You can even quit reading this post if you'd like and skip straight to Phil's, because it has the best information I've found so far about all this (and where I swiped these awesome videos).

Meanwhile, for those wondering, it doesn't seem like this event has anything at all to do with the asteroid passing by Earth later today. 2012DA14 is moving in a completely different orbit (passes by us around 2:25pm EST today), so it's basically impossible for this meteor to have been a broken off part of that asteroid.

And no, THERE IS NO CHANCE THAT 2012DA14 WILL HIT US.

So rest easy, it is highly unlikely any more big space rocks are going to rain down on us today. This is a great reminder, though, of how important it is to keep funding space programs. If you must panic, may I recommend channeling that panic as funding for science? Pretty please?

Now, excuse me while I go find other awesome photographs and pictures of this amazingly cool event. I'll definitely update this blog post later if news changes or if I find something that needs to be shared.

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METEOR SONIC BOOM! I mean, seriously!!!


...Okay, I'm done now. Just had to get that out one more time.


EDIT: Reports now saying close to 1000 injured, thankfully none reported killed so far. Many buildings are evacuated for fear of structural compromise. Some amazing pictures of the meteor and the damage here: http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/

EDIT 2: This Russian Livejournal account has probably the best collection of images and videos I've found yet: http://zyalt.livejournal.com/722930.html