Saturday, 16 February 2013

METEORITE SLAMS INTO CENTRAL RUSSIA.

A meteor streaked across the sky above the Ural Mountains in Russia this morning, injuring more than 400 people, many hurt by broken glass, and causing explosions. A fireball streaked through the clear morning sky, followed by loud bangs. President Vladimir Putin said he thanked God no big fragments had fallen in populated areas. A large meteorite landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a town in Chelyabinsk region. While NASA estimated the meteor was only about the size of a bus and weighed an estimated 7,000 tons, it exploded with the force of 20 atomic bombs. The meteorite arrived just hours before an asteroid named the 2012 DA14 was due to come within 17,000 miles of Earth at 2:24 p.m. ET, a record close-approach for an asteroid this size. The meteorite rocketed into the atmosphere at 33,000 mph - or 10 miles per second - and shattered into pieces somewhere between 18-32 miles above the ground. As it streaked across the clear morning sky, the meteorite left a trail of white cloud that could be seen across large parts of central Russia. Do you think the end of the world is coming? Augusta Thoenig

4 comments:

  1. I personally don´t think or believe that this means that the world as we know it is coming to an end.
    It is a real tragedy that a meteorite has fallen harming so brutally a country and its citizens, but why would this mean the end of the world? What happens with all the hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and the volcano eruptions that humanity has been forced to face and deal with in the past few years? Do they all mean the end of the world? Does this mean that the end of humanity and life is much near than we all think it is? Well, this questions lead to different answers and opinions, but I believe that is doesn´t mean the end, that it´s just movements and functions our planet, the earth, is supposed to do, and therefore does.
    However, it is true that in the last few years the number of natural disasters and the harm of its consequences have increased. Is it believed that this is due to the high levels of contamination and the increase of temperature in the planet. So, in a way, the increase of natural disasters is because of the constant, excessive and inexhaustible use of the resources of the planet.
    Therefore, in my opinion, people should see this catastrophe as a world´s sign to slow down the rhythm and start respecting and protecting the planet. You may think this is nonsense and that it doesn´t mean anything, but it is said by experts that if humanity keeps using the world as it is used now two more “earths” will be needed.
    In conclusion, natural disasters aren´t a sign of the end of the world, but they could mean a sign of alert to humanity, a sign that if we don´t recognize and respond to in time could finally result in a bigger catastrophe.

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  2. Sincerely I agree with Juliet, we should bear in mind all the different catastrophes that have been going on since humanity appeared. Although on the other hand I personally think that as dinosaurs disappeared in such a way, it is quite probable that the same happens to the human race. A race which keeps challenging mother nature throughout constant unsustainable technology which does nothing but destroying the world in a really high pace, in order to describe this I like to compare what humanity is doing with the world we live in with a man/woman smoking tobacco, it’s something we could stop but we are just not bothered, we are just too lazy and too comfortable to bother about this issues, actually I would like you guys to think about this huge contraposition of ideas. We are trying to stop the earth’s destruction due to an exaggerate use of technology throughout more technology... Seriously guys, I think it is a very serious issue and it is about high time we started thinking about it. Thumbs up for social awareness, we LOVE our planet, we want future generations to have the chance to do the same.

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  3. I totally agree with both points of view. Because as they say, I don’t think the world is coming to an end.

    During all the years of our life, we have been listening to the radio, television or all the other sites of communication the announcement of several hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcano eruptions. However, some of the news weren’t the best we have heard, in most of them, people had survived, there have been some injured people or some deaths in some cases, but this natural disasters doesn’t mean that the end of the world is here and we are going to die in a very little time. All these situations could make us stop and think for a while, think that there is something people and humanity are doing wrong. We could start to focus more on the needs that our planet has and we haven’t give him during all these years, because the fault is just of us. We should start to try and keep our environments save, we have been damaging him during a lot of years, and we have to now start to care about it.

    Although, we now start making these changes, our world is like this, we like it or not, but never is so late to start changing. We could do a lot of progress if we now help the world, but we have to do it all together. The end of the world, is not here, we all know that, but what we know is that we aren’t treating well all of our things, we contaminate and we don’t recycle, we still put a lot of non-soluble materials into de sea and we do a very high quantity of bad and perjudicable things for our environment.

    We will achieve to change the world, when we all put some of our good intentions.

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  4. Carpe diem, my friends. Planet earth could end at any moment, you can't be sure. I'd like to say that meteorites falling to earth aren't a cause of our pollution and as Hugo said we can't defy Mother Nature in so many ways, we should be careful. Any day a huge meteorite could extinguish humanity or a solar eruption could burn down all cables and that would lead to a drastic brake down, electricity wouldn't work. Ask yourself, how many days could we make it without electricity here in Europe or in the U.S?
    We have to be more thoughtful about this, humanity is just a minuscule speck in this expanding universe and there are many star explosions that could zap our solar system to nothing. Some Human beings have arrived to a point in which they believe nothing can stop them but they are so very wrong. This meteorite was minute compared to meteorites bigger than the moon that could destroy our world. Surely Dinosaurs felt indestructible in their times. Have you recently seen a living dinosaur?
    We should enjoy because we could disappear any day and humans don’t know it all.

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