An extraordinary bright orange flash has lit up the sky in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region in the Urals. While locals captured the massive ‘blast’ on numerous cameras, both scientists and emergency services still struggle to explain the unusual event – READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/fz9rvg
Looks like something went “critical” but odd there was no sound. And the color looks to yellow-ish to have been a meteor.
Space Junk.
Is just Russkie fireworks. Similar to your amerikan 4th of July, yes?
Ion explosion.
If the camera date is accurate it could have been an early Leonid meteor exploding behind cloud cover from the Leonid shower that peaked on the 17th-18th. I’ve been seeing a few exceptionally bright Leonids coming in over the city that “pop” and light up the place like daytime. A little over a decade ago I saw a mind blowing Leonid display that had over 3600 meteors coming in per hour! It was raining fire! Throughout the display were dozens of blindingly bright meteors that built in intensity over many seconds before exploding and leaving incandescent glowing smoke trails in the sky which twisted and contorted in the upper level winds for tens of minutes before dissipating.
Another option is space junk as someone mentioned.
Considering the location I like my own theory. Anyone remember Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that put on a magnificent display crashing into Jupiter back in 1994. That comet had made an undetected close approach to the Sun back in 1929. It underwent extreme gravitational and sublimation forces that caused it to break apart as it headed out to the deep reaches of the solar system and back again 65 years later. Astronomers were shocked to see a couple dozen comets headed inbound in a “train”. They were even more shocked that they were going to slam into Jupiter at more that 130,000mph.
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My theory is that maybe an unknown comet or asteroid broke up on a previous orbit of the Sun decades or centuries ago and those fragments are currently inbound but spread over a longer period IF this event is related to the Chelyabinsk meteor of 2013.
It is far more likely that this was just a large but random meteor fulfilling it’s destiny.
T4C, if these are meteoric in origination, they are moving at hyper ballistic speeds in excess of one hundred thousand miles per hour. They only become visually bright by interacting with our atmosphere or in the case of comets, with the Solar wind. With no interaction they are black objects set against a black background (space) and moving a such high speeds that IF NASA or NORAD saw them at all, impact would occur before they could say “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT”. They are unlikely to see such things in time to form a thought let alone react.
Orbital scientists will analyze data over the next few months and determine course and speed. Chances are it was caught on multiple all-sky surveys but it will take time to locate the data.
Everybody calm down…..it was an Amazon drone. Relaaaaaax.
If you want to learn how the orbital scientists (including amateurs) do their thing, check out the NOVA documentary on the first Chelyabinsk meteor that broke up and impacted the ground last year.
Maybe MH-17 finally ran out of jet fuel?
Superman was flying around over the city, and with his supervision he spotted Wonderwoman spreadeagled sunbathing naked on a rooftop. Mmmm mmmm mmm he said to himself, that there is one fine woman. And the more he watched, the more he yearned.
Finally, he could take it no more. He thought to himself, if I zoom down there at super speed, I could get me some and begone before she even knows what has happened. When he could contain himself no longer, down he zoomed at super speed, had his way, and zoomed off smiling, all in less than the blink of an eye.
Down below, Wonderwoman jumped up yelling: “What the hell was that!!!”
“I dunno” shreiked the Invisible Man, ” but my butthole sure is burning!!!!”
Thanks T4C, I’ll read it tonight.
About the speed of incoming objects……..Some things are just sort of floating out there with little relative speed and Earth “runs into them”. Some things hit us from behind so to speak traveling in the same direction but faster and some things hit us head on traveling opposite our orbital direction. The Earth is moving around the Sun at about 65,000mph. If we hit an object moving opposite our direction or travel that is going 130,000mph that is a combined speed of nearly 200,000mph! Luckily most of the things we encounter are small enough to burn up on the way in which in itself is astounding considering the potential speeds involved or have a small enough density like the first Chelyabinsk meteor. Had that meteor been nickel-iron rather than chondritic, Chelyabinsk Russia would have been a giant, smoking crater in seconds and caused serious disruption to our atmosphere in the northern hemisphere.
The earth is zooming around the galaxy at 500k MPH.
What the hell was THAT?!?
Japanese Emperor Hirohito, August 6th, 1945
Death ray malfunction. Putin ordered one after idiots at g20 gave him a headache. Putin said a Bullet to the head easier comrade.
Stucky, the TBP Austrian 6’8″ giant, broke wind.
bb probably farted.
It was Pirate Jo’s labor pains (from finally having a kid).
T4C, that video is basically crap. Imagine if every solar system (star) in the galaxy moved in a similar manner. It would be total chaos. Besides that, the video depicts a system where every planet in the solar system would be within line of site of each other at all times. This does not happen in our system because they can be hidden from our view at times of “superior conjunction”. There are other reasons the video is wrong as well.
That article seemed like a hit piece to me. The authors are a “satire writer” and a “media consultant”. I did not have time to look for it but I’d like to see the original NASA data.
Regarding that flash of light, there are very few other videos of it but one seemed to show the light growing up from the ground. If the video time stamps are accurate it seems this happened at 6:39pm and the sheer number of dash cams in Russia would mean there should be thousands of videos of the event. Given last years Chelyabinsk event, this flash should have been worldwide news within minutes of it happening. Also, Baikanur launch facilities are directly south of this area where the video supposedly originates so it could have been an engine test or a launch or an accident. Given the lack of info on an event that seemingly happened six days ago, I think it’s basically a non-event of Earthly origin.
The Sary Shagan Tesla howitzer.
Ask Art Bell.
dilligaf, that is a KILLER video! I’d give my right nut to see a daytime bolide like that! I’d love to know if it was associated with the Leonid shower or was just a random meteor.
T4C, I appreciate that link as well. My intuition tells me the helical model is not accurate just because no one has proved Kepler, Galileo or Copernicus wrong yet. Not even Einstein or Hawking.
I’m still glad underdogs are out there plugging away at new theories and refining old ones. You never know where the next big discovery will come from. My favorite underdog scientist is J. Harlen Bretz. He formed a theory that described the formation of geologic features in eastern WA. He put forth that water and massive flooding on an unprecedented scale was responsible. His peers ridiculed him for 40 years denouncing him as a quack but he persevered. He walked huge parts of eastern WA in a big grid pattern for many years making field notes and drawings. Luckily he was vindicated before he died. His wiki page is short but well worth reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Harlen_Bretz
There is a feature in eastern WA called Dry Falls that is considered the largest waterfall that ever existed on Earth. Five times wider than Niagra, 3.5 times wider than Victoria falls and taller than both. They estimate that at peak flood the volume of water going over Dry (now) Falls was so great that the falls would have been invisible and hardly a dip in the waters surface would have been visible.
I’d have given anything to see a flood like that! Nearly 3/4 of eastern WA plus parts of Idaho and Oregon were scrubbed down to bare bedrock in a matter of hours. All that water mixed with every tree and loose rock from the entire region crashing into the ocean at the mouth of the Columbia would have been incredible. And the greenies don’t think the environment is “resilient”. Pffft!
@T4C
I’ve seen that video before and I appreciate any and all who think outside the box like this guy,
I get annoyed with people who think our existence as useless bits of carbon in a vast and unending universe somehow has ALL the answers. The smartest people are those who acknowledge how little they actually know.
My question – regarding this video – is how have the constellations stayed constant when viewed from earth? Perhaps its scale [vast – beyond comprehension] and our knowledge of the stars is just that fringing short.
BTW I am a big advocate for the Electric Universe theory and went out yesterday to see Ben Davidson of the Suspicious Observer and his mobile observatory. Great fun!
For more on Electric Sun/Universe see: http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html#corona and http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread665703/pg1
If you like Ben Davidson and his mobile observatory you should really look up your local astronomy club. This is exactly the same kind of thing I and our local club does many times throughout the year. Almost all astronomy clubs do something similar. I’d guess that 20,000 or more people have looked through my telescope. We go to schools, wineries, grocery store parking lots, libraries, malls, convents, and parks. My wife teaches kids and some of them have won national prizes and scholarships.
It keeps us out of trouble.
If you enjoy seeing things from bright, light polluted locations then you owe it to yourself to travel to your local clubs dark sky locations. Observing from a good, dark location is almost a religious experience.
Oh yeah, your local club will likely bring in some pretty good speakers regularly or at least occasionally. We bring in principal scientists who design and build instruments for various spacecraft like Cassini, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars rovers, Galileo and others. We also bring in astronauts like Story Musgrave who led the first and some subsequent Hubble repair/upgrade missions. Our club never charges a fee and I’ve never heard of one that does. We do accept donations though.