That’s from the meteor that hit over in the Urals; didn’t kill anybody – but that’s thanks to the laws of physics, and possibly your benevolent supernatural entity or entities of choice. It’s for damned sure we couldn’t have stopped the sucker if it had happened to be on an intercept course with, say, Kiev.
Moe Lane
PS: The universe is full of rocks that could wreck our whole day. We are ‘safe’ largely because of the laws of probability… which is to say, we’re not safe at all.
The second video at this link : http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/02/14/what-is-happening-in-chelyabinsk/
At about 25 seconds, the sonic boom hits. That would freak me out every bit as much as the trail in the sky, possibly/probably more.
I can see how a lot of folks got injured, they had time to see it, then come to the window to get a better look, and then, 20-30 seconds later, a loud enough sonic boom or explosion blast front blows in the window… Doubly freaky since, with all the talk of the near earth flyby later today, which has brought up the Tunguska blast, Russia gets probably the most spectacular meteorite in the last 30 years.