Lesson 4:

Notes

Lesson 4: Bolide Impact Meteor showers are anticipated by people because of the beautiful display of lights in the night sky is not an everyday occurrence. Are meteors dangerous to human beings and their settlements? On February 15, 2013, a small industrial city in the east of the Ural Mountains, Chelyabinsk in Russian Federation was hit by flashing light from the sky. Many of its residents saw its arrival and vehicle dashboard cameras captured the moment. After a few minutes, there was a blinding light followed by a super blast that damaged thousands of houses and buildings, vehicles, and injured more than a thousand people. Initially, nobody in Russia knew what hit Chelyabinsk, and even experts were puzzled. Nuclear watchers from the United States and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) were not able to detect nuclear detonation. It was only through the uploaded videos in social networking sites and video-sharing sites that scientists finally came to know what hit Chelyabinsk. It was a superbolide from a near-earth object (NEO). Fig. 2. An infographic from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) showing the estimate number of near-earth obje...