NASA EXPERTS DISCUSS RUSSIA METEOR IN MEDIA TELECONFERENCE TODAY

NASA EXPERTS DISCUSS RUSSIA METEOR IN MEDIA TELECONFERENCE TODAY

WASHINGTON -- NASA experts will hold a teleconference for news media 
at 4 p.m. EST today to discuss a meteor that streaked through the 
skies over Russia's Urals region this morning. 

Scientists have determined the Russia meteor is not related to 
asteroid 2012 DA14 that will pass safely pass Earth today at a 
distance of more than 17,000 miles. Early assessments of the Russia 
meteor indicate it was about one-third the size of 2012 DA14 and 
traveling in a different direction. 

Panelists for the teleconference are: 
-- Bill Cooke, lead for the Meteoroid Environments Office at NASA's 
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. 
-- Paul Chodas, research scientist in the Near Earth Object Program 
Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. 

News media interested in participating should dial 888-843-7186 and 
use the passcode METEOR. 

The teleconference will be carried live online at: 

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio 

For detailed information concerning the Earth flyby of 2012 DA14, 
visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html 

Meteor and shockwave hit Russia

A meteor crashed into a community in Russia’s Ural mountains yesterday  injuring at least 950 people, according to the BBC. The meteor crashed into a nearby lake and the shockwave caused damage to buildings and smashed windows. Most of the people affected suffered only cuts and bruises, though about 46 are still hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

The meteor broke up in the atmosphere, with some pieces of the meteor landing as far as 50 miles away from the site.The Russian Academy of Sciences stated that the meteor was travelling at 30,000 MPH at an horizontal approach to the Earth, and appears to have been made of mostly iron.  It is estimated that the weight was approximately 10 tons. 

In this frame from a dashboard camera on a highway from Kostanai, Kazakhstan, to Chelyabinsk region, Russia, provided by Nasha Gazeta newspaper, on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 a meteorite contrail is seen.
 (AP Photo/Nasha gazeta, www.ng.kz)

“The Chelyabinsk Region suffered the greatest damage,” said Russian Minister of Civil Defense Vladimir Puchkov in a statement. “The impact wave and blast damaged around 297 homes, 12 schools, a number of other social facilities, and some industrial sites.”“An operations group numbering more than 20,000 people is at work now,” he continued. “with 3,000 pieces of equipment and 8 aircraft at their disposal. Our priority task is to get practical help to the people in the disaster zone and ensure they have all the essentials for life.”Much smaller meteorites often hit Earth’s atmosphere with more than 500 of them making it through Earth’s atmosphere to crash to the ground. Explosions the size of this event are rare.