Seen today on Twitter:

In Soviet Russia, space explores you.

[leaving quickly]

I figure that event at least doubled the interest in the asteroid fly-by a few hours later.

Good time to re-read the first chapter of Rendezvous with Rama, if it's on a nearby shelf.

My wife pointed out to me that it was a very good thing that this didn't happen 60 or so years ago. How do you think the Soviets would have reacted at that time?



Would we have been as lucky to have something like this happen again?

I do need to dig out my copy of Rendevous with Rama and reread the book. It's been a few years, and was a favorite of mine in high school when I read it right after it came out and the school library obtained a copy. It has worn well; I still like the book.

The combination of the unusually destructive meteor strike in Russia with the near-miss by the asteroid was spooky. I can almost understand why a Russian priest in the city of Yekaterinberg (couple hundred miles north of where the meteor struck) is claiming that it was a sign from God, although I'm skeptical (to put it mildly) of such pronouncements. It *was* an amazing coincidence that the two happened within hours of each other. I wonder if I was the only one who thought of the Tungusku event....

I expect that there will be more interest than usual in meteor strikes for a while. Today one lit up the skies over the San Francisco Bay area and made it into the local and regional news channels.

I am bothered by some conflicting reports. I first heard that the damage was all from the shock wave of the meteor caused by its excessive, but now almost everyone is saying that the meteor exploded some 8-12 miles up like the Tunguska event.

Well, Tunguska flattened over 80 million trees and to the best of my knowledge, there was no crater.

This event apparently did cause a crater in a frozen lake, and I have seen no reports anywhere of any damage being caused by any flattening which I believe would have occurred in at least a few buildings if that had been the case, and no reports of any trees being downed in a fashion similar to Tunguska.

All of this is speculative, but what do you think?