I don’t know about you, but if I was driving while a meteorite broke through the atmosphere and caused an enormous flash in the sky accompanied by a booming sound, then I’d be stopping the car and surveying my surroundings. Well, in Russia it seems, you just keep driving, maybe fast enough to get home and upload the dashboard camera footage to Youtube to share it with the world! According to a post in ‘The New York Times‘, dashboard cameras “are commonplace in Russia partly because of the dangerous driving conditions that lead to so many accidents, and with an unreliable police force such cameras can provide valuable evidence following a crash.”
This happened a few hours ago in Chelyabinsk, 930 miles (1,500 km) east of Moscow, in Russia’s Ural Mountains. Here’s another dashboard camera video.
And here’s the view taken by traffic cameras at a busy intersection. Again, no-one stops their cars!!
Considering there was no indication that something like this was going to happen, I’m feeling less comfortable about the close call with the 45-meter-wide asteroid 2012 DA14 that’s going to pass Earth at a distance of 27,000km tomorrow. Apparently, Australia will have a grandstand view according to this article. You need to be up at 4.30am, so guess who’s setting the alarm? Binoculars or a telescope are necessary, but I’ll take a chance with the naked eye.
This is my fourth* School’s out Friday in a row with no intervening posts. Busy? You bet I am. But some good things are happening, so I’ll try and find time over the weekend to write about them. Hopefully we’ll all still be here!!
*correction – fifth. Not feeling good about that at all.
Lucacept - intercepting the Web 
Did you see the meteor?
No, they were right, it was not visible to the naked eye. Did get up though – nothing like wishful thinking. 🙂