[PJ-Comix]

I'm calling complete BS on this story. The meteorite was traveling at 30 km per second which is 18 miles per SECOND. Do the math and the speed is like several hundred mach. There is NO WAY a missile could catch up to a meteorite moving at that speed. The meteorite broke apart because that is what normally happens when they enter earth's atmosphere.

Or is there somebody out there who actually believes a missile caught up with a missile moving at 18 mpSECOND?

[brivette]

dubious at best.

[Kozak]

And a 20 lb warhead burst a solid chondrite or nickel iron meteor. Right

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Maybe the Russians have stolen the technology of the Obama deficit-reducing missile.

[Sirius Lee]

They Russians must be using magic missiles that leave no contrails and whose streaks up into the sky don't show up on any of the videos.

If the Russians have magic, invisible missiles we're in trouble.

[babygene]

Just asking, how do you or anyone know the speed?

[AnAmericanAbroad]

From Russia Today online: The military had nothing to do with the aerial meteorite explosion, the Urals Emergency Ministry said: “Russia’s defense ministry took no action connected to the incident. No aircrafts has been registered in the air at the given period of time.” Earlier, there were unconfirmed reports that the military had shot down the falling meteorite, shattering it into pieces.

http://rt.com/news/russia-meteor-meteorite-asteroid-chelyabinsk-291/

[Pan_Yan]

Sounds plausable.

Or maybe I’ve just been watching too many James Bond movies lately.

[SampleMan]

Remember to caveat every story you read with the understanding that reporters are idiots. Therefore, the first story they come out with is almost always wrong.

Do not assume that Russian reporters are smarter than our reporters. Their “military source” was probably the gate guard or an old retired tank driver.

[redgolum]

What is the intercept speed of a ICBM?

I am betting the under, but a meteor moves in a relatively straight line Could be a lucky shot.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

If this were true, isn’t this “Star Wars,” the technology they condemned America for developing and demanded we pull it from Poland?

[Pecos]

In a separate statement, the Russian air defense command advised the rest of the world they they officially authorized sunrise today, having refrained from shooting the sun down. </sarc>

[CrazyIvan]

Obama shot it down with his skeet gub.

[GeronL]

That meteorite was coming down anyway

[Hotlanta Mike]

Or is there somebody out there who actually believes a missile caught up with a missile moving at 18 mpSECOND?

---

Certainly, by the same people who believe meteorites are caused by man made global warming...

[Mozilla]

Video at the site:
http://rt.com/news/meteorite-crash-urals-chelyabinsk-283/

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

You can hit a bullet with the USS Missouri, if you have enough prior knowledge and a favorable geometry.

In general, reliable interception requires that the interceptor have a speed advantage, but that is certainly not a requirement. When the Navy used an SM-3 to intercept a defunct satellite in 2008, the satellite was traveling a much, much faster than the missile at intercept. (SM-3 has a top speed of 9600 km/hr, but it would have lost most of that just reaching altitude. Low earth orbit requires about 25,000 km/hr.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lake_Erie_(CG-70)#Interception_of_United_States_satellite_USA-193

But, no, they did not intercept that meteor and attempting to do so would only add chemical and kinetic energy, and possibly release harzardous chemicals, and generally only make things worse.

[Durus]

Wouldn't it be around mach 55? Still valid point, no way their missile defense system could track anything that fast and get a shot off, forget about a missile actually catching the meteor. Even if the missile were heading directly to the meteor it wouldn't get launched before the meteor was down.

[RansomOttawa]

It must have been one of those amazing new Iranian stealth missiles.

[jpsb]

An ICBM travels pretty fast too, the idea is to intercept it not catch up with it. That said there is no anti missile system capable of intercepting a meteorite on short notice. By short notice I mean “Holly s**t what that in the sky?” lol, but just for grins a 20 lbs anything inpacking a meteor traveling at 60,000 mph would result in a very very big band as e=mv2 and 60k mph squared is a very big number. Lets do the math! Mass is about 9kg, velocity is about 30,000m per second so the energy is about 8.1 billion joules. That is enough energy to light up 81 million 100 watt light bulbs for 1 second. Or about 2.1 kilotons of TNT, a small nuke, Not bad for a 20lbs payload.