Meteor Friday

Today is turning out to be a bit of a bonanza for asteroid-watchers. Early this morning a substantial meteor shower took place over the Urals in Russia, with one meteor coming quite low before exploding. The resulting airburst shattered windows in various towns and cities (most notably Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow), injuring approximately 400 people.

This event takes place only hours ahead of the close approach to Earth of asteroid 2012 DA14, a considerably larger body which will pass about 17,000km over the Earth at around 5pm GMT today. There is no known connection between the two events, with the meteors coming from different directions.