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RUSSIAN MILITARY TO DEVELOP ANTI-METEORITE DEFENSES
MOSCOW, February 20 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Aerospace Defense
Forces will develop a series of measures aimed at protecting the
Russian soil from falling meteorites and other dangerous space objects,
commander of the western military district's aviation Maj. Gen. Igor
Makushev said on Wednesday.
"The Aerospace Defense Forces have been ordered to handle this
issue and come up with a plan to protect Russia from these 'space
travelers,'" Makushev said.
The announcement comes days after a meteorite entered the Earth's
atmosphere undetected by existing space-monitoring means and slammed
into Russia's Urals on Friday with a massive boom that blew out windows
and damaged thousands of buildings around the city of Chelyabinsk,
injuring 1,200 people in the area. According to the Health Ministry,
52 were hospitalized.
NASA estimates the meteorite was roughly 50 feet (15 meters) in
diameter when it entered Earth's atmosphere, travelling faster than
the speed of sound, and exploded into a fireball brighter than the sun.
"None of the existing systems, either Russian or American, detected
this space object until it entered the atmosphere," Director of the
Astronomy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Boris Shustov
said on Wednesday.
The scientist said it was impossible to spot the meteorite, as it
was coming from the direction of the Sun, while radars were set to
detect objects flying within a predetermined speed range.
Shustov said the Russian scientists estimate the energy released at
the time of the explosion at less than 500 kiloton equivalent.
He also said astronomers have discovered and catalogued only two
percent of potentially dangerous space objects about 50 meters in
size, which are capable of causing a catastrophe worse than the
Tunguska Event.
"It is a sign of our ignorance, as we should be able to monitor about
at least 90 percent if not all of these objects," Shustov said.
MOSCOW, February 20 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Aerospace Defense
Forces will develop a series of measures aimed at protecting the
Russian soil from falling meteorites and other dangerous space objects,
commander of the western military district's aviation Maj. Gen. Igor
Makushev said on Wednesday.
"The Aerospace Defense Forces have been ordered to handle this
issue and come up with a plan to protect Russia from these 'space
travelers,'" Makushev said.
The announcement comes days after a meteorite entered the Earth's
atmosphere undetected by existing space-monitoring means and slammed
into Russia's Urals on Friday with a massive boom that blew out windows
and damaged thousands of buildings around the city of Chelyabinsk,
injuring 1,200 people in the area. According to the Health Ministry,
52 were hospitalized.
NASA estimates the meteorite was roughly 50 feet (15 meters) in
diameter when it entered Earth's atmosphere, travelling faster than
the speed of sound, and exploded into a fireball brighter than the sun.
"None of the existing systems, either Russian or American, detected
this space object until it entered the atmosphere," Director of the
Astronomy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Boris Shustov
said on Wednesday.
The scientist said it was impossible to spot the meteorite, as it
was coming from the direction of the Sun, while radars were set to
detect objects flying within a predetermined speed range.
Shustov said the Russian scientists estimate the energy released at
the time of the explosion at less than 500 kiloton equivalent.
He also said astronomers have discovered and catalogued only two
percent of potentially dangerous space objects about 50 meters in
size, which are capable of causing a catastrophe worse than the
Tunguska Event.
"It is a sign of our ignorance, as we should be able to monitor about
at least 90 percent if not all of these objects," Shustov said.