Meteorite Slams into Russia

[Mr. Rainman]

An asteroid slammed into Russia this morning. Injured count is currently 725.

[WeatherWitness]

Hey Mac, I put your post from the PBS into its own topic, as I think this is something pretty big to talk about.

Yeah, I honestly thought I was dreaming at first when I saw this on the news.  And this has no relation to the asteroid that will be coming close to Earth later this afternoon?  That's just too much of a coincidence; in fact, at first I thought it was the asteroid they were talking about.  Wouldn't that be an unfortunate "forecast bust."

Unfortunately, I'm seeing reports that the injured count is currently up to 1,100.

[Ice Man]

At first I thought for sure it was a hoax. A big meteorite impact that just happens to coincide with a big scary asteroid? I hadn't gone to sleep yet when it happened, and that sure didn't make sleep easier.

It was obviously too small to be the asteroid they've been tracking, but then I started wondering if it had broken up in Earth's gravity like Shoemaker Levy did, and we were going to be looking at a wave of impacts all day.

Or at the very least, the asteroid had a small satellite we didn't know about.

But everyone's saying it has nothing to do with the big one. The timing is way too weird.