Skyfall

So how was your VD?

Meanwhile, over at Russia...

The sky is falling.

More to the point, a meteorite has reportedly been intercepted by Russian air defense forces, who supposedly blew it up while it was still 20 km in the air.

A series of explosions in the skies of Russia’s Urals region, reportedly caused by a meteorite shower, has sparked panic in three major cities. Witnesses said that houses shuddered, windows were blown out and cellphones have stopped working.

According to unconfirmed reports, the meteorite was intercepted by an air defense unit at the Urzhumka settlement near Chelyabinsk. A missile salvo reportedly blew the meteorite to pieces at an altitude of 20 kilometers.

Did we not learn anything from repeated viewings of Armageddon, Deep Impact, or Independence Day, children?

Blowing up a large incoming object runs the risk of shattering it into smaller objects that may hit even more targets. As the ensuing meteor showers below show:

Interestingly, it's tonight that an asteroid is actually scheduled to be doing a near-Earth fly by.

O,hai!

As per this Slate article:

On Friday, Feb. 15, the Earth is going to get a veryclose shave by an asteroid^*. Called 2012 DA14, this 50 meter (160 foot) rock will pass just over 27,000 kilometers (17,000 miles) from the Earth’s surface. This is closer than our geosynchronous satellites, so this really is a close pass!

But, to be very clear: This asteroid poses no threat to us right now, nor in the foreseeable future. Friday’s miss is just that: a miss. And, in fact, this is a good thing, since any time an asteroid gets close (but misses), we learn a lot, including how to find them, how to track them, and even how to talk about them to the public.

Oh, a miss, eh?


Well, it's not like government agencies never lie to us or anything.

And from what I've read:

At its closest point, 2012 DA14 will be above Sumatra, Indonesia at 2:24 PM EST (19:24 GMT).

Well, howdy, neighbor.

And one more for the road:

Smile!

Interesting how that flash at 0:13 could be the last thing you'll ever see.


Dun dun dun dunnnnnn!