A fireball lit up the Russian sky, shocking onlookers and causing damage to buildings. Reports indicate it may have been caused by meteorites. NBCNews.com's Keva Andersen explains.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
A huge fireball fell from the skies over Russia's Chelyabinsk region early Friday, resulting in a powerful blast that reportedly injured about 400 people.
Reports from Russia suggested that the fireball was caused by a meteorite.
"Preliminary indications are that it was a meteorite [shower]," the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted an emergency official as saying. "We have information about a blast at 10,000-meter (32,800-foot) altitude. It is being verified."
The Associated Press quoted a spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry, Vadim Kolesnikov, as saying that the fireball caused an explosion and sonic boom that broke windows.?
City authorities in Chelyabinsk,?930 miles east of Moscow,?said about 400 people sought medical help, mainly for light injuries caused by flying glass, Reuters reported.
The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, the witness told Reuters, and mobile phones were working intermittently.
"I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend," said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name. "Then there was a flash and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shockwave that smashed windows."
The meteorite raced across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 125 miles away in Yekaterinburg.
"I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day," Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg, told Reuters. "I felt like I was blinded by headlights."
No fatalities were reported but President Vladimir Putin, who was due to host Finance Ministry officials from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were informed.
Multiple videos posted to YouTube showed the object flaring brightly as it sped across the sky. Twitter users posted photos showing broken windows. One video showed an office building in Chelyabinsk being hurriedly evacuated.
Russian news media quoted local residents as speculating that the blast could have been caused by a missile explosion or a military plane crash, but an unnamed emergency official told Reuters that was not the case.?
"It was definitely not a plane," the official said, without elaborating. "We are gathering the bits of information and have no data on the casualties so far."
The arc of the fireball's trail can be seen in this Chelyabinsk video.
A YouTube video documents Friday's fireball, witnessed in the skies over Chelyabinsk.
Loud booms and alarms can be heard in this video from Chelyabinsk.
This video records the sound of an explosion and car alarms in the Chelyabinsk region.
The Chelyabinsk blast creates a sensation in this video.
RT reports on the meteor blast in Chelyabinsk.
The fireball reports spread just hours before a 150-foot-wide asteroid was due to make a close flyby, coming within 17,200 miles of Earth.
It's unlikely that there's any connection between the fireball and the encounter asteroid, known as 2012 DA14.
However, a bright flash and explosion in midair would be consistent with the atmospheric entry and breakup of a large meteoroid.
If 2012 DA14 were to hit Earth, the scenario might play out in a similar way, but with a far more powerful impact.
In 1908, a massive explosion shook a remote region of Siberia and knocked down millions of trees over an 820-square-mile area. Experts concluded that the blast, known as the Tunguska event, was caused by the midair explosion of a 150-foot-wide asteroid falling to Earth.
The videos just keep streaming in from Chelyabinsk. You'll find lots of great clips and stills on?this Live Journal page and this WBVF wrap-up. Thanks to my Twitter pals for passing them along. ?
Reuters contributed to this report.
More about cosmic impacts:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the?Cosmic Log?community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space,?sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
This story was originally published on Fri Feb 15, 2013 5:05 AM EST
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