Friday in Russia a meteor exploded in the sky setting off a shockwave that injured more than a thousand people.
This comes on the same day that a large asteroid passed by the Earth, making people wonder about the earth's safety from space objects.
A meteor exploded in the sky above Russia, causing a shockwave that blew out windows and injured more than 1,000 people.
"Meteors wind up hitting the earth fairly frequently,” explained Robert Boyle, Associate Professor of Physics and the Astronomy Director of the Michael Britton Observatory at Dickinson College. “You can go out at night and on an average night, you'll see 4-5 meteors per hour."
Boyle says that while meteors are common, what happened over Russia is a very rare occurrence.
"The majority of impacts occur over water, over unpopulated areas, because there's a lot of water and unpopulated areas on Earth,” commented Boyle. “So the majority don't cause this much damage, it just happens that there were some communities that were hit."
The last time a similar meteorite strike happened was in 2008 above Sudan, but because the area is relatively unpopulated, there were no injuries.
"It's not everyday we get to see a meteor of that size come through the atmosphere and I think it was actually really impressive to see and I don't think we'll see anything like that for a long time again," commented physics major Justin Brown.
A large asteroid named 20-12 DA-14 also made a pass by Earth Friday, causing many people to look to the sky.
"I think the timing of what happened over Russia was impeccable with what's going to happen tonight," Brown added.
20-12 DA-14 has already passed the point where it was closest to the Earth, just 17,300 miles away, which to put in perspective is about a tenth of the way to the moon. But later this evening, many stargazers are hoping to catch a glance of the space object.
"In order to see it we're going to have to use the 24 inch telescope,” Brown concluded. “it's not going to really be visible with anything else."
To see the asteroid pass by Earth from several different observatories, click here: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/video.cfm
This comes on the same day that a large asteroid passed by the Earth, making people wonder about the earth's safety from space objects.
A meteor exploded in the sky above Russia, causing a shockwave that blew out windows and injured more than 1,000 people.
"Meteors wind up hitting the earth fairly frequently,” explained Robert Boyle, Associate Professor of Physics and the Astronomy Director of the Michael Britton Observatory at Dickinson College. “You can go out at night and on an average night, you'll see 4-5 meteors per hour."
Boyle says that while meteors are common, what happened over Russia is a very rare occurrence.
"The majority of impacts occur over water, over unpopulated areas, because there's a lot of water and unpopulated areas on Earth,” commented Boyle. “So the majority don't cause this much damage, it just happens that there were some communities that were hit."
The last time a similar meteorite strike happened was in 2008 above Sudan, but because the area is relatively unpopulated, there were no injuries.
"It's not everyday we get to see a meteor of that size come through the atmosphere and I think it was actually really impressive to see and I don't think we'll see anything like that for a long time again," commented physics major Justin Brown.
A large asteroid named 20-12 DA-14 also made a pass by Earth Friday, causing many people to look to the sky.
"I think the timing of what happened over Russia was impeccable with what's going to happen tonight," Brown added.
20-12 DA-14 has already passed the point where it was closest to the Earth, just 17,300 miles away, which to put in perspective is about a tenth of the way to the moon. But later this evening, many stargazers are hoping to catch a glance of the space object.
"In order to see it we're going to have to use the 24 inch telescope,” Brown concluded. “it's not going to really be visible with anything else."
To see the asteroid pass by Earth from several different observatories, click here: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/video.cfm