Tag Archives: Russia

Meteor Hits Russia, Not. Maybe did.

UPDATE: Somebody found a hole in some ice.

This is a meteor streaking across the sky in the vicinity of the Urals:

Numerous additional films of that event and some analysis are on Phil Plait’s blog, here.
Here’s a FAKE video purported to be a crater formed by a fragment of that meteor BUT IT ISN’T:

From Phil Plait’s blog: “Note also lots of hoaxes are turning up, like a video of a flaming crater that’s actually a flaming pit in Turkmenistan that’s been burning for decades (called “The Door to Hell”). Be cautious and be skeptica”

… apparently the shock wave of the meteor passing over head or breaking apart blasted apart doors and windows and such in nearby villages and about 1,000 people were somewhat injured by flying debris.

I’m also told that there is no connection between the nearby asteroid flyby and this event. According to Phil Plait (see link above) the direction of the objects flying across the sky in the videos seems to be different than the direction of the visiting asteroid. That is all provisional, of course, This is a breaking story and it will be a while before we can totally understand the details.