Wow, what a day today! Not only did we (as in, people of the Earth) got to observe the closest recorded flyby of an actual asteroid but we also witnessed the Chelyabinsk event. Pretty exciting, astronomically speaking, of course. As a matter of fact, I think, the Chelyabinsk meteor, kind of, blew (no pun intended) the asteroid out of the water in terms of a wow-factor. The reports and videos of both are galore on all the news and social networks around the world.
As far as Asteroid 2012 DA14 is concerned - quite a few sites were set up for viewing. NASA, of course, ruled the waves and provided lots of great information and further links to explore. The closest approach was somewhere over Indonesia between 2pm and 3pm Eastern Time. Here is a great video of the asteroid on its approach, shot from one of the Australian observatories. Incredible! As the popular Internet meme states: "Asteroids are the Nature's way of asking: "How is that space program coming along?".
And the Russian meteor.... Oh, wow! Judging from the reports and videos posted online, the first reactions of the people actually experiencing the flash of light, the explosion and the subsequent destructive shock wave of air ranged from complete panic and thinking that an artillery bombardment was occuring to obviously concerned but more rational considerations of the event of staggering rarity. Lots of damage and injured people. And this was a fairly small bolide that, thankfully, exploded in the atmosphere instead of smashing in the middle of a populated area. As funny as that meme I mentioned above is, the fact of the matter is that there is little to nothing that humans can do about pretty much anything coming from space. However, burying one's head in the sand and ignoring the cumulative scientific knowledge of the past few centuries...well, I don't quite know what solution is there except education and further education, which, let's face it, a growing number of people do not even bother to consider, choosing the convenient fairy tales instead.
Anyway, here is some further tidbits regarding the meteorite:
-The resulting explosion had quite an impact - it registered on USGS's seismometers!
-One of the videos showing the smoke from the meteor entry and explosion, as well as the arrival of the shock wave.
-Russian news story with the first pictures of the lake where some of the bolide's remnants appear to have crashed, and of a couple of minor meteorites. Also has embedded videos of the meteor flash and shockwave destruction from various dashboard and security cameras.
Incidentally, it has already been confirmed that the meteor and the asteroid were unrelated. The trajectories and timing of the events were completely off.
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