The Sky Fell?

Posted by Dacia Mitchell | Managing Editor on Feb 15, 2013 | 3 comments

On Wednesday’s #TWiBRadio (direct download) we mentioned the close fly-by of asteroid 2012 DA14, a rock 150 feet in diameter, that will zoom past Earth today at 2:25 p.m. EST (19:25 UTC). It’s expected to miss us by 17,000 miles (or about 15 minutes) which, in celestial terms, is pretty damn close. But early this morning, in a moment of interstellar coincidence, Central Russia was punched right in the face by another meteor. It broke up in the atmosphere, causing a large shockwave that shattered glass and buckled doors, injuring about 500 people.

Meteor events of this magnitude are not as rare as you might think. While smaller bits of space junk hit the Earth about 10 times per year, large events of the magnitude witnessed in Russia occur about once every five years, however, they rarely occur in densely populated areas. This all does beg the question: “How’s that space program coming along?”

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Dacia Mitchell | Managing Editor

Dacia Mitchell is a writer and domestic warrior based in Oakland, CA. When she isn't co-hosting and slinging facts at #TWIBRadio, she's mashing her keyboard to complete her dissertation in American Studies at NYU. She tweets.

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