RUSSIA proposes common defense system to counter SPACE threats

Suspected meteor explosion reported in central Cuba

CUBA: An object fell from the sky over central Cuba on Thursday night and turned into a fireball “bigger than the sun” before it exploded, a Cuban TV channel reported Friday, citing eyewitnesses.

Some residents in the central province of Cienfuegos were quoted as saying that at around 8 p.m. local time Thursday (0100 GMT Friday) they saw a bright spot in the sky comparable to a bus in size. The object then turned into a fireball “bigger than the sun,” said the witnesses, adding that several minutes later they heard a loud explosion. One resident told the TV station that his house shook slightly in the blast. Cuban experts have been dispatched to the area to look for possible remains of the meteor-like object, said the report.

It remains unknown whether the reported phenomenon in Cuba is related to Friday’s meteor strike in central Russia, which set off a shockwave that shattered windows and left some 1,000 people injured. XINHUA

Russia halts search for meteorite

RUSSIA: Russian authorities halted their search Sunday for the meteorite that spectacularly struck the Urals last week, leaving about 1,200 people injured and damaging several thousand buildings.

The 10-tonne space rock streaked over the Chelyabinsk region in central Russia in a blinding fireball on Friday just as the world was braced for a close encounter with a large asteroid. With air temperatures at around minus 17 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Farenheit), Russian divers spent Saturday scouring a frozen lake believed to be the impact site, but the emergency ministry has now decided to focus on repair works in the region instead, a spokesman told AFP. “Divers worked there, but we didn’t find anything,” said spokesman Vyacheslav Ladonkin. He said the ministry considered that a circular eight-metre hole in the frozen lake Chebarkul, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the city of Chelyabinsk, was not caused by any extraterrestrial body.

“Then there was a blast. And then I don’t remember,” she said from her hospital bed, apparently still dazed. Emergency workers continued replacing smashed window panes during the weekend, after nearly 5,000 buildings were damaged by the sonic boom caused by what scientists said was a 10-tonne meteor. The strike is the most stunning cosmic incident above Russia since the 1908 Tunguska Event, in which a colossal blast most scientists blame on an asteroid or a comet levelled trees across a stretch of Siberia.

Scientists at US space agency NASA estimated that the amount of energy released in the atmosphere was about 30 times greater than the force of the nuclear bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

AFP

*Came across atmosphere at 64,000 km per hour

* Diameter of “space comer” was 15 metres

* Came across atmosphere at 64,000 km per hour

RUSSIA: Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin Saturday proposed establishing a common defense system to counter space threats, one day after a meteorite explosion injured some 1,200 people in the Chelyabinsk region in Russia’s Urals region.

“Humankind must create a system to identify and neutralize objects that pose a danger to the Earth,” the official wrote on his Twitter ac

count.

Rogozin said he would present Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev Monday with proposals on how to tackle similar incidents in the future.

Local experts also advocated for the building of a common space threat monitoring and warning system.

Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos, told local media that strategic planetary defense should be a “priority” for Russia. He called for a special federal program on neutralizing space threats.

The damage caused by the meteorite strike in the Urals region is estimated to exceed 1 billion rubles (about 30 million U.S. dollars), Governor Mikhail Yurevich told reporters, adding the number may increase. According to NASA data, the diameter of “space comer” was about 15 meters and it came across the atmosphere at a speed of 64,000 km per hour. The energy shockwave was equal to about 300 kilotons of TNT.

Last October, Russian rocket and space corporation Energia vowed to build a space rocket capable of destroying asteroids threatening the Earth.

The largest-ever meteorite impact with the Earth in written history occurred in 1908 in Russia’s Siberia over Tunguska River, when a forest area was flattened by a slightly smaller asteroid, which exploded about five miles above ground.

Meteorite pieces for sale on-line

Hours after the huge meteor explosion over Ural Mountains on Friday, residents of the Russian city of Chelyabinsk had already begun to list meteorite pieces for sale on Avito. Ru, Russia’s leading website for classified ads.

As many residents of the city were still nursing injuries from the unexpected blast, others were already trying to make a profit, advertising meteorite pieces for sale on auction sites.

In one post on Avito.Ru, a user named Andrew advertised 18 pieces for 500 rubles each (the equivalent of 16.61 dollars), which he promised would be arriving by plane to Moscow on Saturday from Chelyabinsk.

Another Chelyabinsk resident left an announcement on the site, writing, “Buy a fragment of a meteorite Chelyabinsk, found today at the crash site, photo later. Questions by mail, the price is also negotiable. “

A third user who identified himself as Sergey, asked for 300,000 rubles (roughly 10,000 dollars) for a piece of the space rock. “A piece of the meteor for sale, it’s new,” Sergey wrote, with a photo attached of himself holding a piece of stone.

The New York Times reported that most of the injuries came from the eastern city of Chelyabinsk, a major industrial center known for manufacturing military machinery and nuclear weapons, and formerly, a center of production for weapons-grade plutonium.

XINHUA