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What
is this? Doesn’t look much like a meter to me.
Chelyabinsk
meteor #2? Massive flash over Russia’s Urals stuns locals &
scientists
RT,
19
November, 2014
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.
Dark
evening skies in the town of Rezh in Sverdlovsk region near Russia's
Ekaterinburg turned bright orange for some ten seconds on November
14, with the event being caught on several cameras by the locals.
A
driver filmed the massive flash with his dashcam, later posting the
video on YouTube, with more people commenting they’ve seen it too.
Teenagers in the town of Rezh also filmed the phenomenon with a
mobile phone.
Theories
of what might have caused the “blast” appeared both on social and
traditional media, with a new meteorite or military exercise in the
region being among the top guesses. Regional emergency services said
no accidents in connection with the event had been recorded. No sound
of explosion has been reported either.
According
to E1.ru, the emergency officials suggested the military were behind
the flash, as they might have had a scheduled explosive ordnance
disposal procedure. The city administration has also said such
ammunition disposal might have taken place, while the military
themselves denied they were behind the mystery.
“No
exercise and training were underway on that day, and no military
units are based in the region, so we have nothing to do with it,” a
military press service told E1.ru.
A
fireball caused by an asteroid’s collision with the Earth's
atmosphere is among other presumed reasons for the burning sky.
“Looks
like a falling bolide, which invaded us. Because of the low cloud
cover it ceased to exist above the clouds and lit up the whole
sky,” a
member of the meteorites committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Viktor Grokhovsky told 66.ru.
Another
astronoma, Vadim Krushinsky, doubted his colleague's theory, saying
the color of the flash does not support the asteroid speculation. The
shade of light depends on the body’s temperature, and flashes
caused by bolides are usually whiter, he explained to Ekburg.tv. The
observatory engineer suggested his own theory, saying a space rocket
launch might have been the cause.
A
path of launches from the Plesetsk cosmodrome lies above the area,
Krushinsky said. But, according to Russian Federal Space Agency's
website, the latest launch from the Plesetsk cosmodrome happened on
October 29, with the next one planned for November 24.
People
in the Urals witnessed a space ‘invasion’ event a year and a half
ago, when the famous Chelyabinsk
meteorite hit
the region. A massive fireball explosion in February 2013 injured
over a thousand people with shattered glass mostly, and damaged many
residential and industrial buildings
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